Book Description

"A guide and manual for ladies, as regards their conversation, manners; dress; introductions; entre to society; shopping; conduct in the street; at places of amusement; in traveling; at the table; either at home, in company, or at hotels; deportment in gentlemen's society; lips; complexion; teeth; hands; the hair; etc. etc. "With full instructions and advice in letter writing; receiving presents; incorrect words; borrowing; obligations to gentlemen; offences; children; decorum in church; at evening parties; and suggestions in bad practices and habits easily contracted, which no lady should be guilty of, etc. etc." "If you have shopping to do, and are acquainted with the town, you can be under no necessity of imposing on any lady of the family the task of accompanying you. To shop for others, or with others, is a most irksome fatigue. Even when a stranger in the place, you can easily, by enquiring of the family, learn where the best stores are to be found, and go to them by yourself." "No colours are more ungenteel, or in worse taste, than reddish lilacs, reddish purples, and reddish browns." "Above all, do not travel in white kid gloves. Respectable women never do."* "Ladies no longer eat salt-fish at a public-table." Originally published in 1864, this item reads today as a wretched but informed instruction manual for Miss Leslie's readership - upper class Victorian American ladies. Both sociologically fascinating and hilarious, The Ladies' Guide To True Politeness, is, to quote American Literary Gazette and Publishers' Circular, Volumes 3-4, "written for American society, and its admonitions are such as are of practical and constant importance in ordinary intercourse."