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The story of the young girl who is believed to have inspired the play “Pygmalion” has been snapped up by Weidenfeld & Nicolson following the London Book Fair.
Weidenfeld’s Kirsty Dunseath paid a five-figure sum for UK and Commonwealth rights to How To Create The Perfect Wife by bestselling author Wendy Moore—one of the “hot” titles highlighted by The Bookseller in its LBF previews—from Patrick Walsh of Conville & Walsh. The book will be published in spring 2012.
Walsh said: “There’s nothing that Wendy likes more than an old archive and once again she has struck gold among all the dust and dead moths.”
The book tells the story of Thomas Day, who in 1769 embarked on an “extraordinary social experiment”, educating two orphan girls with the aim of turning one of them into the perfect wife.
He intended to marry the most successful candidate, but his experiment failed, as one resisted his attempts at education and the other rebelled against his “bizarre” regime.
Dunseath said: “Wendy is a terrific storyteller and she has hit on yet another captivating subject in Thomas Day and his attempt to create the perfect wife. She has a true talent for making history come alive.”