Bloomsbury Publishing - Bed Manners: A Very British Guide to Boudoir Etiquette

W HAT ? A new etiquette book in a world already groaning under the weight of thousands of etiquette books? Yes. Because this book pioneers in a new field of good manners and good form. It goes straight into the bedroom. It discusses bediquette, the new social science intended for people so clever that they do not just hang up their good manners every night with their clothes. This is the first complete book on how to be knightly, nightly. We commend this subject to every intelligent reader as an important new branch of public beducation.

Of course, you may be living all alone on a desert island, to which you have fled to escape your creditors, your wife, or the like. If so, it doesnt matter how you behave at night. Only the owls and fireflies can see you, and it makes no difference to them if you snore, mutter in your sleep, kick the clothes off the bed, or commit any other breach of social etiquette. But probably you are not alone, or dont want to be.

Civilized life is full of strange adventures. Some people explore the jungle, others work in laboratories with deadly germs, others get a kick out of polo, or mountain climbing, or cruising in deep water in tiny boats like cockleshells. But the strangest adventure of all is to find yourself locked in a bedroom with a person of the opposite sex, with whom you are required to go to bed and get up thousands and thousands of times. This is called marriage. It may have happened to you already. Or it may happen just when you least expect it and are least prepared.

Very well. How are you going to act? How are you going to make the other person act? The schools teach many valuable subjects like geometry, ancient history, football and algebra, but they do not teach bed manners. As a result, young people plunge into marriage with no idea how to behave.

During the past year, to prove our point, we have studied more than one million words written by every authority on etiquette. We have listened to the radio as well. Make this test yourself, and what do you get? You get a lot of information about visiting cards, and lawn ftes, and the right way to eat asparagus, and how to write a letter to a public man, and to set the table for a formal luncheon. This is all good, as far as it goes. But it never goes past bedtime. You might think these authorities wanted you to sit up all night writing formal letters, or practising the correct way to grip asparagus, or something.

Now, you know better than that. You know that you cant sit up all night for more than a few nights without feeling very tired and wanting to get some sleep. Very well. This little book which you are now reading tells you, in a few practical lessons, everything you need to know about good form in the bedroom. Knowledge is power.

Grasp it firmly, and you will be able to remodel the behaviour of the person who sleeps with you. This person has no doubt been behaving very badly, for lack of good, practical information, such as this book supplies. If this is not checked, at once, it will lead to quarrels, injured feelings, and eventually to divorce. You probably will not be able to afford a divorce this year. Avoid all such expense by leaving this book in some place where your bedfellow will see it and absorb its lessons. If it doesnt work a cure, nothing can.

If you wish to do good in your community, like a good citizen, you should extend the usefulness of this book by giving it to every married couple who are beginning to crack under the strain. In the very next home in your street, you may have reason to know that the husband is a boor. Or the wife may behave as if she had been brought up in the monkey-house at the zoo. Your course of action is obvious. Buy a copy of this book and leave it on their pillow. They may be surprised when they see it, but they will thank you in the end, when they learn how much happier it will make them.

You have a duty to young people, too. Instead of letting them grow up and marry in blind ignorance of the natural pitfalls caused by imperfect bed manners, you must see that a copy of this book goes to every prospective bride and bridegroom. A young woman who finds it among her wedding presents will appreciate your kind thought. So will the college student who receives it as a prize from you.

Another splendid use of this book is as a gift to your physician. He meets dozens of discontented married people in his daily rounds. He will want to prescribe this book to all of them, as soon as he has read it, digested it, and learned what it can do to make his own married life bearable, even happy.

One word of warning. This is the first and only book ever printed about Bed Manners. The subject is a vast one. The happiness of many million people depends on it. Therefore, do not attempt to read this book rapidly. Meditate each chapter before you take up the next one. You must think as you read. You can do this in the privacy of your home, or in the subway, or out riding with friends, or in odd moments at the office or factory where you work. Carry it about with you and give its magic a full chance to work.

P ERHAPS the best way to treat this subject is to quote a report made by that famous scientist, the late Dr Alonzo Blodgett. He spent seven years making a study of the manners and customs of the South Sea Islanders for the Ethnology Department of Siwash University. His final report was brief. It merely read They have no manners and their customs are disgusting.

During a large portion of Mans historical life bed manners did not exist. This was due to the absence of beds. Life was simple in this period. At the end of the day people lay down and slept. If not eaten by tigers, they walked off at dawn. The only courtesy one could show to ones cave chum was not to step on him (or her).

The first beds were really rooms within rooms. They had roofs from which hung heavy draperies like sleeping-car curtains. These air-tight folds surrounded the entire structure. The question of who was going to open the window did not exist in the good old days. This fabric sarcophagus occupied the centre of the great upper hall in every well-appointed castle. On the floor and benches surrounding it slept the court: ladies-and-gentlemen-in-waiting, pages, hautboys, halberdiers, friends of the family, serfs and serfants anyone, in fact, who couldnt find a better place. All snored together in an amiable hodge-podge. This phenomenon was never repeated until the advent of the sleeping car.

Upon retiring, My Lord and Lady merely waved good-night to half a hundred people and dived through the curtains. If they were King and Queen, however, they were not allowed even this privacy. A loyal band of ladies-and-gentlemen-in-waiting immediately dove in after them. Then followed the royal unbuttoning and unlacing, undoubtedly accompanied by much shouting and innocent laughter. The royal clothes were whisked away. The happy couple were at last alone prisoners until their clothes were brought back with the dawn. But the court slept around them on floor and couches, all night long.