Life
Acton was born in Battle, Sussex, the eldest of the five children of Elizabeth Mercer and John Acton, a brewer. The family returned to Suffolk shortly after her birth, and there she was raised. At the age of seventeen she and another woman opened a school for girls in Claydon, near Ipswich, which remained open for four years. Her health was precarious and she apparently spent some time in France where she is rumoured to have had an unhappy love affair. She published her Poems in 1826 (see 1826 in poetry) after returning home, and the book enjoyed some small success. She subsequently published some single, longer poems, but it was her Modern Cookery (1845) that garnered her the widest acclaim; it was an immensely influential book which established the format for modern writing about cookery. Shortly after its publication she relocated to London, where she worked on her next and final book, The English Bread Book (1857). Along with recipes and a scholarly history of bread-making, this volume contained Acton's strong opinions about adulterated and processed food.
Acton, her health never strong, died in 1859 and was buried in Hampstead.
Read more about this topic: Eliza Acton
Famous quotes containing the word life:
“Poor devil, poor devil, he’s best gone out of a life where he rides his rocking-horse to find a winner.”
—D.H. (David Herbert)
“The real sin against life is to abuse and destroy beauty, even one’s own—even more, one’s own, for that has been put in our care and we are responsible for its well-being.”
—Katherine Anne Porter (1890–1980)
“Our life on earth is, and ought to be, material and carnal. But we have not yet learned to manage our materialism and carnality properly; they are still entangled with the desire for ownership.”
—E.M. (Edward Morgan)