How to Create the Perfect Wife: The True Story of One Gentleman, [...]
This is the story of how Thomas Day, a young man of means, decided he could never marry a woman with brains, spirit or fortune. Instead, he adopted two orphan girls from a Foundling Hospital, and set about educating them to become the meek, docile women he considered marriage material.
Unsurprisingly, Day's marriage plans did not run smoothly. Having returned one orphan early on, his girl of choice, Sabrina Sidney, would also fall foul of the experiment. From then on, she led a difficult life, inhabiting a curious half-world - an ex-orphan, and not quite a ward; a governess, and not quite a fianc e. But Sabrina also ended up figuring in the life of scientists and luminaries as disparate as Erasmus Darwin and Joseph Priestley, as well as that pioneering generation of women writers who included Fanny Burney, Maria Edgeworth and Anna Seward.In HOW TO CREATE THE PERFECT WIFE, Wendy Moore has found a story that echoes her concerns about women's historic powerlessness, and captures a moment when ideas of human development and childraising underwent radical change.Wendy Moore is a freelance journalist and author. Her work has been published in numerous national newspapers and magazines and has won several awards. Her first book The Knife Man won the MEDICAL JOURNALISTS' ASSOCIATION CONSUMER BOOK AWARD in 2005 and was shortlisted for the MARSH BIOGRAPHY AWARD. Her second book, Wedlock, has been highly acclaimed and was chosen for Channel 4's THE TV BOOK CLUB. She lives in London with her husband and two children.
Author: Wendy Moore
Format: Paperback, 352 pages, 137mm x 199mm, 285 g
Published: 2014, Orion Publishing Co, United Kingdom
Genre: Biography: Historical, Political & Military
This is the story of how Thomas Day, a young man of means, decided he could never marry a woman with brains, spirit or fortune. Instead, he adopted two orphan girls from a Foundling Hospital, and set about educating them to become the meek, docile women he considered marriage material.
Unsurprisingly, Day's marriage plans did not run smoothly. Having returned one orphan early on, his girl of choice, Sabrina Sidney, would also fall foul of the experiment. From then on, she led a difficult life, inhabiting a curious half-world - an ex-orphan, and not quite a ward; a governess, and not quite a fianc e. But Sabrina also ended up figuring in the life of scientists and luminaries as disparate as Erasmus Darwin and Joseph Priestley, as well as that pioneering generation of women writers who included Fanny Burney, Maria Edgeworth and Anna Seward.In HOW TO CREATE THE PERFECT WIFE, Wendy Moore has found a story that echoes her concerns about women's historic powerlessness, and captures a moment when ideas of human development and childraising underwent radical change.Wendy Moore is a freelance journalist and author. Her work has been published in numerous national newspapers and magazines and has won several awards. Her first book The Knife Man won the MEDICAL JOURNALISTS' ASSOCIATION CONSUMER BOOK AWARD in 2005 and was shortlisted for the MARSH BIOGRAPHY AWARD. Her second book, Wedlock, has been highly acclaimed and was chosen for Channel 4's THE TV BOOK CLUB. She lives in London with her husband and two children.