 Following the radio broadcast of Meet Mrs. Beeton , a 1934 comedy in which Samuel was portrayed in an <unk> light , and Mrs Beeton , a 1937 documentary , <unk> Beeton worked with H. Montgomery Hyde to produce the biography Mr and Mrs Beeton , although completion and publication were delayed until 1951 . In the meantime Nancy Spain published Mrs Beeton and her Husband in 1948 , updated and retitled in 1956 to The Beeton Story . In the new edition Spain hinted at , but did not <unk> upon , on the possibility that Samuel contracted syphilis . Several other biographies followed , including from the historian Sarah Freeman , who wrote Isabella and Sam in 1977 ; Nown 's Mrs Beeton : 150 Years of Cookery and Household Management , published on the 150th anniversary of Isabella 's birthday , and Hughes 's The Short Life and Long Times of Mrs Beeton , published in 2006 . Isabella was ignored by the Dictionary of National Biography for many years : while Acton was included in the first published volume of 1885 , Isabella did not have an entry until 1993 . 
