Etiquette Vlog: Introduction, Amy Vanderbilts Complete Book of Etiquette: A Guide to Gracious Living

AMY VANDERBILTS COMPLETE BOOK OF ETIQUETTE A Guide to Gracious Living Who needs a book of etiquette? Everyone does. The simplest family, if it hopes to move just a little into a wider world, needs to know at least the elementary rules. Even the most sophisticated man or woman used to a great variety of social demands cannot hope to remember every single aspect of etiquette applying to even one possible social contingency. The human mind is so constructed that even if a person were to read through a book such as this from cover to cover he could retain only that information that had interest for him at the time of reading. Consciously, at least, the rest would be discarded as irrelevant to his way of life. But let some new way of living open up for him: a move from city to country, a trip to a new part of the world and his etiquette book becomes his reference book, ready to piece out his own store of information. In young countries and ours is certainly one when you think in terms of Paris's two thousand years etiquette books have an important place. The physical and economic changes the country undergoes inevitably bring about fairly rapid social changes. The people who first come to *** country usually arrive as workers, for every hand is needed, living facilities are at a premium, and there is little if any of the leisure or money necessary for the immediate development of an aristocracy. That is why all old American families such as mine have strong and simple roots here. Some of them may have brought with them the drawing-room manners of older civilizations, but they found that many of the niceties of living required adaptation or else had to be discarded in this vigorous, busy young land. I believe that knowledge of the rules of living in our society makes us more comfortable even though our particular circumstances may permit us to elide them somewhat. Some of the rudest and most objectionable people I have ever known have been technically the most "correct." Some of the warmest, most lovable, have had little more than an innate feeling of what is right toward others. But, at the same time, they have had the intelligence to inform themselves, as necessary, on the rules of social intercourse as related to their own experiences. Only a great fool or a great genius is likely to flout all social grace with impunity, and neither one, doing so, makes the most comfortable companion. It is my hope that this book answers as fully and simply as possible all the major questions of etiquette and most of the minor ones too. It is the largest and most complete book of etiquette ever written. Like a dictionary, it will have few cover-to-cover readers aside from my meticulous editor, Marion Patton, the copy editors, and the proofreaders. But this undoubted fact does not in the least disturb me, for a reference book such as this has a long and much-thumbed existence. It can become a reliable friend to whom one may turn many a questioning glance over the years and get a helpful answer. It can put down roots and become an integral part of the family, even be an objective counselor to the children as they enter their teens. It is axiomatic that as we mature and grow in years and experience we must be able to meet more demanding social situations with confidence and ease. This book contains, I believe, explicit information on every possible social problem one is likely to encounter in modern social living. Amy Vanderbilt WESTPORT, CONNECTICUT 1952