This advice guide for female servants sets out rules of behaviour designed to promote their industriousness, preserve their characters and prevent any misbehaviour likely 'to result in their ending…their miserable days in an hospital or work-house…or [finding] their death-bed on a dunghill' and is a remarkably rare survival. A later, fifth,edition is the only one recorded in the UK, with this first edition not listed in the ESTC. From the library of Sir Thomas Phillipps (1792-1872). 'Ann Walker ' is a fictitious creature invented by the publisher: the book is a direct plagiarism of Eliza Haywood’s Present for a servant-maid, first published in 1743.
Ann Walker, A complete guide for a servant maid... FNL grant 2012. Image courtesy of the Geffrye Museum.