How to Create the Perfect Wife: Britain's Most Ineligible Bachelor and His Enlightened Quest to Train the Ideal Mate in Around the World in 80 Books

Feb 01, 2015 Kay rated it really liked it

Shelves: nonfiction, eccentrics, biogr-memoir

Well now, here's one I'm happily shelving with my many other books on eccentrics. Thomas Day was misguided, misanthropic, maladroit, and at times moronic, but I cannot dislike him as heartily as some other reviewers here do. I have to confess that he reminded me a bit of myself at age 12 or so, when I was quite certain that one day I would open the right book and find the answer to a question which I had not yet fully formulated but which nonetheless would be the ultimate ANSWER. And it would ma Well now, here's one I'm happily shelving with my many other books on eccentrics. Thomas Day was misguided, misanthropic, maladroit, and at times moronic, but I cannot dislike him as heartily as some other reviewers here do. I have to confess that he reminded me a bit of myself at age 12 or so, when I was quite certain that one day I would open the right book and find the answer to a question which I had not yet fully formulated but which nonetheless would be the ultimate ANSWER. And it would make me happy.

Sound quixotic and foolish? You bet! But such fond but impossible wishes lurk in many a breast, though very few of us have the audacity to make them public.

Thomas Day was looking for the ideal woman after being spurned by his first love. He turned, like any good bookish soul, for a solution in a book and lo! there it was in the pages of Rousseau. No matter that Rousseau's account was fictional and that no one had ever tried the method before. Day seized upon it and clung to it like a life preserver.

That his method of training his two chosen subjects was underhanded, illegal, and heartless is another matter. The two foundlings he plucked from an orphanage underwent many trials and tribulations, recounted with great verve by the author. She, I might add, faces a similar dilemma as the one the reader does: can we completely and roundly condemn Thomas Day or do we find some small corner of our heart softening towards him? Well, I am obviously in the latter camp. I will not spoil the outcome of this tale for potential readers but I will make a disclaimer similar to the ones seen at the end of films featuring animals: No actual orphans were harmed during the conduct of this experiment. At the end, as readers will find, quite the contrary.

I might also add that this book featured a cornucopia of famous characters, which was something I hadn't expected. Erasmus Darwin (grandfather of Charles), Benjamin Franklin, John Constable, Maria Edgeworth (author of Castle Rackrent, which I much enjoyed), Thomas Bentley & Josiah Wedgwood (the famed porcelain manufacturers), Fanny Burney, and the aforementioned Jean-Jacques Rousseau. As a social snapshot of the Age of Enlightenment, this is a most rewarding tome. And, to round out the surprises, the reader learns that Day's experiment echoed down through the years and was ultimately used as source material for several well-known writers, not the least of whom was George Bernard Shaw. Day's quest to mold the perfect woman clearly resonated even as it was being derided.

Last but not least, this author can write. Hallelujah! In clear prose that steers away from sermonizing, demonizing, patronizing, or ridiculing, Wendy Moore gives us the background needed to understand the motives of Day and his circle, and the times they inhabited.

A cracking good read! ...more

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Aug 10, 2013 Verity rated it liked it

Shelves: non-fiction

What a strange man Thomas Day was, as I am sure you have already read in other reviews. Having worked in a male-dominated field and having been on a variety of dates, Day's views are not so infuriating as to toss the book aside, unlike my Mom who could not get passed chapter 2.

The only thing that bugged me was the chapter 10 title "Virginia, Belinda and Mary" as you only briefly hear about a Mary in the first couple of pages whilst the fictional characters Virginia and Belinda are in the last 5 ...more

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Aug 06, 2013 Anna rated it liked it

Shelves: history, non-fiction

An interesting tale of a man who sets out to raise the perfect wife. In an era of repressed sexually highlighted by outrageous sexual hijink and bed hopping, Thomas Day "adopts" two young female orphans in a misogynistic attempt to find someone who will love him. He realized from the beginning that the experiment is socially reprehensible and morally wrong, as he layers the adoptions in layers of secrecy. As is the case in any experiment involving human nature, nothing came about as he expected. ...more

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