manual · cloth, gilt-stamped · third edition, revised throughout
a manual of running a household, in the older sense — not the
keeping clean of rooms but the keeping of them generally:
knowing what is in each cupboard, knowing the temper of the
boiler, knowing on which day of the
week the post arrives early. a chapter on the
resident keeper sits at the
front of the book. the third edition adds chapters on rented
rooms, single-occupant flats, and households maintained at
a distance.
the editor is firm on what a household is not. it is not a
home. a home is private and unsystematic; a household is a
structure that can be handed over, in writing, to someone
else. a chapter near the end describes how to do this: what
to leave in writing, what to leave in silence,
and what to leave on the kitchen table for the new keeper to
find on their first morning.
the manual is heavily indexed. it pairs, by long tradition,
with the atlas of dust;
both lived on the shelf above the boiler in the press's
offices until the building was sold.
marginalia · ink, several hands i am the fourth keeper of this copy. the previous three each added a chapter in the back. i have added the fifth.