Lady Deirdre Waggon is the author of several books on self-improvement information for young ladies wishing to become better homemakers and hostesses. She is a takeoff on Isabelle Beeton who while only in her 20s and with no practical house-holding experience, wrote several books on the topic. Her 1861 Book of Household Management was aimed at a generation of middle-class women who, for the first time in history, had not learned household skills from their mothers. New codes of gentility meant that young women in the 1850s were more likely to know how to play the piano and converse in French than they were to bake bread or make their own clothes. Increased mobility also meant that young housewives frequently lived in different towns or cities from their families. With no-one to turn to, they needed a book to help them navigate the first tricky years of married life. Lady Deirdre Waggon's book fills the same role for Gladys the Golem who is learning about being a woman in a domestic situation.