How to Create the Perfect Wife
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Narrated by:
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Angele Masters
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By:
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Wendy Moore
About this listen
Thomas Day, an 18th-century British writer and radical, knew exactly the sort of woman he wanted to marry. Pure and virginal like an English country maid yet tough and hardy like a Spartan heroine, she would live with him in an isolated cottage, completely subservient to his whims. But after being rejected by a number of spirited young women, Day concluded that the perfect partner he envisioned simply did not exist in frivolous, fashion-obsessed Georgian society. Rather than conceding defeat and giving up his search for the woman of his dreams, however, Day set out to create her.
So begins the extraordinary true story at the heart of How to Create the Perfect Wife, prize-winning historian Wendy Moore’s captivating tale of one man’s mission to groom his ideal mate. A few days after he turned 21 and inherited a large fortune, Day adopted two young orphans from the Foundling Hospital and, guided by the writings of Jean-Jacques Rousseau and the principles of the Enlightenment, attempted to teach them to be model wives. After six months he discarded one girl, calling her "invincibly stupid", and focused his efforts on his remaining charge. He subjected her to a number of cruel trials - including dropping hot wax on her arms and firing pistols at her skirts - to test her resolve but the young woman, perhaps unsurprisingly, eventually rebelled against her domestic slavery. Day had hoped eventually to marry her, but his peculiar experiment inevitably backfired - though not before he had taken his theories about marriage, education, and femininity to shocking extremes.
Stranger than fiction, blending tragedy and farce, How to Create the Perfect Wife is an engrossing tale of the radicalism - and deep contradictions - at the heart of the Enlightenment.
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SLOW START BUT STICK WITH THIS ONE
- By The Louligan on 01-22-19
By: Claudia Renton
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We Two
- Victoria and Albert: Rulers, Partners, Rivals
- By: Gillian Gill
- Narrated by: Rosalyn Landor
- Length: 18 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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It was the most influential marriage of the 19th Century - and one of history’s most enduring love stories. Traditional biographies tell us that Queen Victoria inherited the throne as a naïve teenager, when the British Empire was at the height of its power, and seemed doomed to find failure as a monarch and misery as a woman until she married her German cousin Albert and accepted him as her lord and master. Now renowned chronicler Gillian Gill turns this familiar story on its head, revealing a strong, feisty queen, and a brilliant, fragile prince working together to build a family.
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I found it extremely moving.
- By Cheryl on 08-07-09
By: Gillian Gill
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The Duchess
- By: Amanda Foreman
- Narrated by: Wanda McCaddon
- Length: 15 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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Lady Georgiana Spencer was the great-great-great-great-aunt of Diana, Princess of Wales, and was nearly as famous in her day. In 1774 Georgiana achieved immediate celebrity by marrying William Cavendish, fifth Duke of Devonshire, one of England's richest and most influential aristocrats. She became the queen of fashionable society and founder of the most important political salon of her time.
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Captivating Biography with Outstanding Narration
- By Johanna on 05-15-16
By: Amanda Foreman
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The Club
- Johnson, Boswell, and the Friends Who Shaped an Age
- By: Leo Damrosch
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 15 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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In 1763, the painter Joshua Reynolds proposed to his friend Samuel Johnson that they invite a few friends to join them every Friday at the Turk's Head Tavern in London to dine, drink, and talk until midnight. Eventually, the group came to include among its members Edmund Burke, Adam Smith, Edward Gibbon, and James Boswell. It was known simply as "the Club". In this captivating audiobook, Leo Damrosch brings alive a brilliant, competitive, and eccentric cast of characters.
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Wonderful survey
- By Tad Davis on 05-10-19
By: Leo Damrosch
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Eliza Hamilton
- The Extraordinary Life and Times of the Wife of Alexander Hamilton
- By: Tilar J. Mazzeo
- Narrated by: January LaVoy
- Length: 10 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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Fans fell in love with Eliza Hamilton - Alexander Hamilton’s devoted wife - in Lin-Manuel Miranda’s phenomenal musical Hamilton. But they don’t know her full story. A strong pioneer woman, a loving sister, a caring mother, and, in her later years, a generous philanthropist, Eliza had many sides - and this fascinating biography brings her multifaceted personality to vivid life.
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Eliza Deserves Better
- By jmn89 on 12-20-19
By: Tilar J. Mazzeo
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The Intimate Lives of the Founding Fathers
- By: Thomas Fleming
- Narrated by: Arthur Morey
- Length: 17 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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With his usual storytelling flair and unparalleled research, Tom Fleming offers a compelling, intimate look at the founders—George Washington, Ben Franklin, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton, and James Madison—and the women who played essential roles in their lives.
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Interesting, but unbalanced, angle
- By Devon on 07-03-14
By: Thomas Fleming
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Daughters of the Samurai
- A Journey from East to West and Back
- By: Janice P. Nimura
- Narrated by: Emily Zeller
- Length: 10 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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In 1871, five young girls were sent by the Japanese government to the United States. Their mission: learn Western ways and return to help nurture a new generation of enlightened men to lead Japan. Raised in traditional samurai households during the turmoil of civil war, three of these unusual ambassadors - Sutematsu Yamakawa, Shige Nagai, and Ume Tsuda - grew up as typical American schoolgirls. Upon their arrival in San Francisco, they became celebrities.
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Need a different narrator
- By Shazz on 10-23-16
By: Janice P. Nimura
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Effie
- The Passionate Lives of Effie Gray, John Ruskin and John Everett Millais
- By: Suzanne Fagence Cooper
- Narrated by: Sophie Ward
- Length: 12 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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Effie Gray, a beautiful and intelligent young socialite, rattled the foundations of England's Victorian age. Married at 19 to John Ruskin, the leading art critic of the time, she found herself trapped in a loveless, union after Ruskin rejected her on their wedding night. She met John Everett Millais, Ruskin's protege, and fell passionately in love with him. Suzanne Fagence Cooper has gained exclusive access to Effie's previously unseen letters and diaries to tell the complete story of this scandalous love triangle.
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Fascinating Story--Victoriana
- By Cariola on 06-29-12
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Becoming Queen Victoria
- The Unexpected Rise of Britain's Greatest Monarch
- By: Kate Williams
- Narrated by: Katharine Lee McEwan
- Length: 16 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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In 1819, a girl was born to the fourth son of King George III. No one could have expected such an unassuming, overprotected girl to be an effective ruler - yet Queen Victoria would become one of the most powerful monarchs in history. Writing with novelistic flair and historical precision, Kate Williams reveals a vibrant woman in the prime of her life, while chronicling the byzantine machinations that continued even after the crown was placed on her head.
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Extremely Well Written and Readable
- By Wren on 04-01-17
By: Kate Williams
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Fryderyk Chopin
- A Life and Times
- By: Dr. Alan Walker
- Narrated by: Corrie James
- Length: 23 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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Based on 10 years of research and a vast cache of primary sources located in archives in Warsaw, Paris, London, New York, and Washington, D.C., Alan Walker's monumental Fryderyk Chopin: A Life and Times is the most comprehensive biography of the great Polish composer to appear in English in more than a century. Walker's work is a corrective biography, intended to dispel the many myths and legends that continue to surround Chopin.
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This book is a masterpiece
- By Carpe Diem on 02-09-19
By: Dr. Alan Walker
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Victoria: The Queen
- An Intimate Biography of the Woman Who Ruled an Empire
- By: Julia Baird
- Narrated by: Lucy Rayner
- Length: 21 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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When Victoria was born, in 1819, the world was a very different place. Revolution would threaten many of Europe’s monarchies in the coming decades. In Britain, a generation of royals had indulged their whims at the public’s expense, and republican sentiment was growing. The Industrial Revolution was transforming the landscape, and the British Empire was commanding ever larger tracts of the globe. In a world where women were often powerless, during a century roiling with change, Victoria went on to rule the most powerful country on earth with a decisive hand.
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Masterpiece!!
- By DKSTRYKER on 01-07-24
By: Julia Baird
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The Mistresses of Cliveden
- Three Centuries of Scandal, Power, and Intrigue in an English Stately Home
- By: Natalie Livingstone
- Narrated by: Elizabeth Knowelden
- Length: 17 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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Overlooking the Thames, the Cliveden mansion is flanked by two wings and surrounded by lavish gardens. Throughout its storied history, Cliveden has been a setting for misbehavior, intrigue, and passion - from its salacious, deadly beginnings in the 17th century to the 1960s Profumo affair, the sex scandal that toppled the British government. Now, in this immersive chronicle, the manor's current mistress, Natalie Livingstone, opens the doors to this prominent house and lets the walls do the talking.
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disappointed
- By Galina M. on 11-14-16
What listeners say about How to Create the Perfect Wife
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Lulu
- 04-05-15
I Should Have Known About This
I read a couple of articles about this book before it came out and it made me very interested in reading. The premise was creepy but fascinating - a wealthy yet eccentric Georgian-era oaf selects two orphans with plans to mold one into the perfect wife.
The book did not live up to my expectations, although it was very readable and parts were fascinating. The most disappointing portion of the book was the part dealing with the relationship between Thomas Day and his two charges - Sabrina and Lucretia, names he gave them. This part of the book, which was the focus of the articles I read, didn't really live up to the hype. There is no good way to explore the relationship between a grown man and a pre-teen girl, without it becoming uncomfortable or creepy and I think the author tried so hard to avoid that, this part of the book was dry and dull.
What was interesting was the discussion about Day's circle of friends who formed the Lunar Society including Charles Darwin's grandfather and several of the authors, poets, philosophers and politicians of that time. A group that seemed so educated and erudite I could not figure out why Day was allowed to participate. Although, it bothered me that so many of these people knew about Day and his bizarre experiment and didn't try to put a stop to it
But the most interesting part of the book was the author's ending list of all the subsequent books, novels and plays that were based on this true story, including, at least partially, Shaw's Pygmalion. This is one of those foundational stories that I think I should have known about.
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6 people found this helpful
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- GoldenWandDove
- 02-04-14
Should have been great but, for the performance
What disappointed you about How to Create the Perfect Wife?
The performance was SO awful that it was actually hard to listen to. Angele's accent kept changing and most of the book (that I managed to get through) was read in a very distracting sing song style with certain words read with a different accent. It was horrible. Just when you think you can get the rhythm of the reading it changes and then goes back to the sing song style so you can never actually acclimate your ears. Horrible. Just horrible.
What was your reaction to the ending? (No spoilers please!)
I couldn't finish listening to this horrible reader. I'm going to read the book instead.
Would you be willing to try another one of Angele Masters’s performances?
No. Never.
You didn’t love this book... but did it have any redeeming qualities?
The subject seemed like it would be really interesting.
Any additional comments?
Save your money, don't buy this audiobook.
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