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Perfect Wives in Ideal Homes
Virginia Nicholson
€ 27.99
€ 21.09
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Description for Perfect Wives in Ideal Homes
Paperback. Tells the story of women in the 1950s: a time before the Pill, when divorce spelled scandal and two-piece swimsuits caused mass alarm. This book illustrates how the women of the 1950s yearned for the innovative technology of the era to liberate them from repetitive drudgery. Num Pages: 544 pages. BIC Classification: 1DBK; 3JJPG; HBJD1; HBLW3; HBTB; JFSJ1. Category: (G) General (US: Trade). Dimension: 198 x 129. Weight in Grams: 368.
In Perfect Wives in Ideal Homes, Virginia Nicholson tells the story of women in the 1950s: a time before the Pill, when divorce spelled scandal and two-piece swimsuits caused mass alarm. Turn the page back to the mid-twentieth century, and discover a world peopled by women with radiant smiles, clean pinafores and gleaming coiffures; a promised land of batch-baking, maraschino cherries and brightly hued plastic. A world where the darker side of the decade encompassed rampant prostitution, a notorious murder, and the threat of nuclear disaster. Perfect Wives in Ideal Homes reconstructs the real 1950s, through the eyes of the women who lived it. Step back in time to when our grandmothers scrubbed their doorsteps, cared for their families, lived, laughed, loved and struggled. This is their story.
Product Details
Publisher
Penguin Books Ltd United Kingdom
Number of pages
544
Format
Paperback
Publication date
2016
Condition
New
Number of Pages
560
Place of Publication
London, United Kingdom
ISBN
9780241958049
SKU
V9780241958049
Shipping Time
Usually ships in 4 to 8 working days
Ref
99-2
About Virginia Nicholson
Virginia Nicholson was born in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, grew up in Yorkshire and Sussex, and studied at Cambridge University. She lived abroad in France and Italy, then worked as a documentary researcher for the BBC. Her books include the acclaimed social histories Among the Bohemians, Singled Out, Millions Like Us, and Perfect Wives in Ideal Homes. She is married with three grown-up children and lives in Sussex.
Reviews for Perfect Wives in Ideal Homes
Gripping, constantly surprising: a page-turner. We hear at first hand the life stories of women from different walks of life, from factory workers to debs. Each story draws you right in and it's always a wrench to move on
Country Life The popular image is of a world where women wore little frilled pinafores with immaculately coiffed hair and happy smiles as they dusted, swept and baked . . . But Nicholson's book reveals a much darker side of life
Telegraph, Best Non-Fiction Books of 2015
An inspiring book, lovingly researched, well-written and humane . . . the period is beautifully caught
Economist (on 'Singled Out')
Remarkably perceptive and well-researched . . . Virginia Nicholson has produced another extraordinarily interesting work, sensitive, intelligent and well-written
Sunday Telegraph (on 'Singled Out')
A ground-breaking book, richly nuanced with titbits of information, insight and understanding
Daily Mail (on 'Singled Out')
Meticulously researched
Femke Colborne
Big Issue in the North
A fascinating look at the lives of ordinary women in 1950s Britain
Sunday Times
Richly detailed. We hear from women working as air hostesses, housewives, biscuit packers, prostitutes, academics, models, secretaries and Buttlin's Redcoats. We discover how women felt entering beatuty contests, having to give up work on marriage, being defined by their husband's jobs, becomming unmarried mothers, enduring racism, marching against nuclear weapons and desiring other women. Nicholson's own commentary, in turns compassionate and wry, holds everything together
Michele Roberts
Independent
There is certainly warmth in [Virginia Nicholson's] curiosity as she delves into the stories of her mother's generation . . . Nicholson's judgements are rightly and often amusingly sharp . . . Her skill as an interviewer leaves her subjects revealing long-kept secrets and her flair as a writer makes us care about these young women and what happens to them
Lara Feigel
Observer
Indefatigably researched, moving and perceptive, Nicholson handles her wide-ranging material with sympathy, humour and a lightness of touch. Her enviable gift for interpretation and storytelling is balanced by first-hand accounts of those women of the 1950s, their youth so relatively recent, who have trusted her with the intimate details of their lives
Juliet Nicolson
Spectator
Poignantly illustrates how the women of the 1950s yearned for the innovative technology of the era to liberate them from repetitive drudgery
Victoria Coren Mitchell
Observer
Insightful social history. Mixing research with a wealth of anecdote, Nicholson brings history to vivid and touching life
Jenny McCartney
Mail on Sunday
The achievements of the women in this book haunt us and move us to admiration
Tessa Hadley
Guardian
Remarkable. To today's young, it'll sound like life on another planet
Daily Mail
Nicholson spells out the contradictions of this era so well: a new world dressed in old clothes
David Barnett
Independent on Sunday
An uplifting and heartwarming read
Stella
An important and humane book of female social history . . . In this work, Nicholson musters voices to profound and deeply political effect. Much of the material in this book will be familiar to women over 55: we were born into this world. For younger women, though, Nicholson's book should be necessary reading, to remind them how far we have travelled.
Melanie Reid
The Times
Nicholson uses vivid contemporary sources and oral testimony to show the constraints under which so many women lived. Like David Kynaston's Family Britain . . . Nicholson has the same knack of seamlessly piecing gripping individual stories into a panorama of ordinary life
Bee Wilson
Sunday Times
Nicholson handles her material with confidence, sympathy and, ultimately, optimism that for most women things have improved, so that the abiding emotion is not gloom but, in my case, admiration for my mother's generation and gratitude that it was so much better for ours
Anne Sebba
Daily Telegraph
Virginia Nicholson gets us closer than we have ever been before to the complicated day-to-day reality of women's lives during that still controversial decade, the 1950s
David Kynaston
Country Life The popular image is of a world where women wore little frilled pinafores with immaculately coiffed hair and happy smiles as they dusted, swept and baked . . . But Nicholson's book reveals a much darker side of life
Telegraph, Best Non-Fiction Books of 2015
An inspiring book, lovingly researched, well-written and humane . . . the period is beautifully caught
Economist (on 'Singled Out')
Remarkably perceptive and well-researched . . . Virginia Nicholson has produced another extraordinarily interesting work, sensitive, intelligent and well-written
Sunday Telegraph (on 'Singled Out')
A ground-breaking book, richly nuanced with titbits of information, insight and understanding
Daily Mail (on 'Singled Out')
Meticulously researched
Femke Colborne
Big Issue in the North
A fascinating look at the lives of ordinary women in 1950s Britain
Sunday Times
Richly detailed. We hear from women working as air hostesses, housewives, biscuit packers, prostitutes, academics, models, secretaries and Buttlin's Redcoats. We discover how women felt entering beatuty contests, having to give up work on marriage, being defined by their husband's jobs, becomming unmarried mothers, enduring racism, marching against nuclear weapons and desiring other women. Nicholson's own commentary, in turns compassionate and wry, holds everything together
Michele Roberts
Independent
There is certainly warmth in [Virginia Nicholson's] curiosity as she delves into the stories of her mother's generation . . . Nicholson's judgements are rightly and often amusingly sharp . . . Her skill as an interviewer leaves her subjects revealing long-kept secrets and her flair as a writer makes us care about these young women and what happens to them
Lara Feigel
Observer
Indefatigably researched, moving and perceptive, Nicholson handles her wide-ranging material with sympathy, humour and a lightness of touch. Her enviable gift for interpretation and storytelling is balanced by first-hand accounts of those women of the 1950s, their youth so relatively recent, who have trusted her with the intimate details of their lives
Juliet Nicolson
Spectator
Poignantly illustrates how the women of the 1950s yearned for the innovative technology of the era to liberate them from repetitive drudgery
Victoria Coren Mitchell
Observer
Insightful social history. Mixing research with a wealth of anecdote, Nicholson brings history to vivid and touching life
Jenny McCartney
Mail on Sunday
The achievements of the women in this book haunt us and move us to admiration
Tessa Hadley
Guardian
Remarkable. To today's young, it'll sound like life on another planet
Daily Mail
Nicholson spells out the contradictions of this era so well: a new world dressed in old clothes
David Barnett
Independent on Sunday
An uplifting and heartwarming read
Stella
An important and humane book of female social history . . . In this work, Nicholson musters voices to profound and deeply political effect. Much of the material in this book will be familiar to women over 55: we were born into this world. For younger women, though, Nicholson's book should be necessary reading, to remind them how far we have travelled.
Melanie Reid
The Times
Nicholson uses vivid contemporary sources and oral testimony to show the constraints under which so many women lived. Like David Kynaston's Family Britain . . . Nicholson has the same knack of seamlessly piecing gripping individual stories into a panorama of ordinary life
Bee Wilson
Sunday Times
Nicholson handles her material with confidence, sympathy and, ultimately, optimism that for most women things have improved, so that the abiding emotion is not gloom but, in my case, admiration for my mother's generation and gratitude that it was so much better for ours
Anne Sebba
Daily Telegraph
Virginia Nicholson gets us closer than we have ever been before to the complicated day-to-day reality of women's lives during that still controversial decade, the 1950s
David Kynaston