title: How to Create the Perfect Wife: Britains Most Ineligible Bachelor and his Enlightened Quest to Train the Ideal Mate
author:  Wendy Moore 
description: Who hasnt dreamed of a perfect better half? But one eighteenth-century British philosopher attempted to make that dream come true. Moore (Wedlock, 2009) lays out the incredible true story of Thomas Day. Unable to find a spouse suited for the bare life of virtue he envisioned, Day set out to create her by taking two orphan girls and subjecting them, without their knowledge, to his wife-molding program. Moore wittily skewers Days pie-in-the-sky ideals as they clash disastrously with reality. This engaging account will appeal to a diverse audience, including Enlightenment philosophy students and Jane Austen fans. Day is ludicrous, insufferable, arrogantand utterly engrossing. His quixotic quest fired the plots of numerous fictional works, including Pygmalion, that examined the quest for perfection. The narrative pulses forward briskly, moving between Days story and those of the orphan girls. Drawing on detailed personal accounts, Moore creates suspense and surprise in a manner rarely achieved in biographies. An unusual and unusually fascinating story. --Bridget Thoreson
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  ‘If only you could find a woman to marry who has no interest in actually being
  your wife, your problems would be solved.’
  
  She spoke flippantly, more to divert his attention from her own tragic
  situation than anything else, but Innes, who had been in the act of taking
  another sip of whisky, stopped, the glass half-way to his lips, an arrested
  look in his eyes.
  
  ‘Say that again.’
  
  ‘What? That you need to marry…?’
  
  ‘A woman who has no interest in being my wife,’ he finished for her with a
  dawning smile. ‘A woman who is in need of a home and has no fixed plans, who
  might actually be looking for a respite from her current life for a wee while.
  You’re right—that’s exactly what I need. And I know exactly the woman.’
  
  ‘You do? You cannot possibly mean…’
  
  His smile had a wicked light in it. ‘I do,’ Innes said. ‘I mean you.’
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [AUTHOR NOTE](index_split_005.html#filepos7558)
  
  After I finished writing UNWED AND UNREPENTANT, which had a Clyde shipbuilder
  as its hero, I deci