How to Behave: A Pocket Manual of Republican Etiquette, and Guide to Correct Personal Habitsembracing an Exposition of the Principles of Good Manners; Useful Hints on the Care of the Person, Eating, Drinking, Exercise, Habits, Dress, Self-Culture, and Behavior at Home; The Etiquette of Salutations, Introductions, Receptions, Visits, Dinners, Evening Parties, Conversation, Letters, Presents, Weddings, Funerals, the Street, the Church, Places of Amusement, Traveling, Etc., with Illustrative Anecdotes, a Chapter on Love and Courtship, and Rules of Order for Debating Societies

A fascinating time capsule of Victorian America's anxieties and aspirations, this 19th-century guide aims to transform any rough young American into a polished member of polite society. Samuel R. Wells believed that etiquette was not mere superficial nonsense but the outward expression of inner moral character, that how you hold your knife reveals the state of your soul. The book covers staggering ground: everything from proper bathing techniques and brushing teeth to the precise protocol for introducing your fiancée to a widowed aunt, from the correct way to decline a second helping to the delicate art of writing condolence letters. There are rules for street behavior, church behavior, ballroom behavior; a chapter on love and courtship that approaches romance as a formal negotiation; and detailed instructions for debating societies that seem to have anticipated every possible parliamentary maneuver. What makes the book endure is not just its compendium of now-antiquated customs but its window into timeless human concerns: the desperate desire to belong, the fear of embarrassing oneself, the belief that respectability can be learned. Read it for the historical curiosity, stay for the discovering that people worried about the same social nightmares in 1880 that we worry about today.