Anna Madeley plays the author of "Mrs. Beeton's Book of Household Management," a groundbreaking 1861 book of household tips, in "The Secret Life of Mrs. Beeton." Click photo for larger image. Masterpiece Theatre: 'The Secret Life of Mrs. Beeton' When: 9 p.m. Sunday on WQED. Starring: Anna Madeley and JJ Feild.

If you combined Martha Stewart, Julia Child, Dr. Benjamin Spock and Judith Manners into one Victorian woman, you'd have Isabella Beeton, whose groundbreaking book, "Mrs. Beeton's Book of Household Management," was published in 1861 and soon sold millions of copies.

In the 1,152-page original hardcover edition, as well as updated and abridged versions still in print today, Beeton offers tips on cooking (with hundreds of recipes), homemaking, raising children, being a model wife, managing the servants and many other topics.

In a 21st-century world barraged with self-help books, it's hard to imagine a time when women had nowhere to turn for guidance except to their mothers or trusted friends or family.

But the imperious Mrs. Beeton wrote, "As with the commander of an Army, or the leader of any enterprise, so is it with the mistress of a house. Her spirit will be seen through the whole establishment; and just in proportion as she performs her duties intelligently and thoroughly, so will her domestics follow in her path."

Today this attitude seems quaint, but in Victorian times, it was revolutionary. Her ?eminist goal was "to elevate the daily business of a housewife to its proper position."

But Mrs. Beeton wasn't the omniscient homemaker who her readers assumed she was.

Amazingly, she was a fiery, 21-year-old newlywed who couldn't cook and knew next to nothing about housekeeping.

A self-taught journalist, she wrote the book by doing the research (including, in one diverting scene, trying to convince a maid to kill a turtle to test a soup recipe).

Her lusty husband, Sam Beeton (played by JJ Feild, who looks as if he might be Jude Law's younger brother), was a struggling publisher of magazines and newspapers. Mrs. Beeton (Anna Madeley), bored with housework, decided to help him by writing and editing for his woman's magazine. Letters from female readers seeking advice inspired her to write the book.

"Two geniuses in one bed," her husband says. "A very rare occurrence in Pinner," a town in Harrow, a borough of Greater London.

The 90-minute movie is narrated by the 28-year-old Isabella Beeton, who is watching the mourners at her own funeral. How and why she died so young is at the heart of the title's "secret life," which is a misnomer -- she has a secret, but not a secret life, and many viewers will figure out the mystery midway through.

The movie moves along at a brisk clip, with good acting and an informative look into how Brits lived in Victorian times.

"I needed to prove to the world that [the book] could be done, and done by a woman," Mrs. Beeton said. She deserves credit as a pioneering journalist and feminist.