An 18th Century sociopath is the subject of Wendy Moore’s latest entertaining biography

THE follow up to Wendy Moore’s tale of Georgian Britain’s “worst husband” is this biography of the era’s “most ineligible” bachelor.

Wendy’s second book Wedlock: How Georgian Britain’s Worst Husband Met His Match, told the remarkable story of Mary Eleanor Bowes, Countess of Strathmore, whose grew up at Gibside and inherited the country house from her father. She was also the grandmother of John Bowes, who built a French-chateau at Barnard Castle, now The Bowes Museum.

Her biography gives a detailed account of the abuse and cruelty Mary Eleanor was dealt by her second husband, the Irish fortune-hunter Andrew Robinson Stoney.

Her divorce from the vicious Stoney was a scandal which rocked Georgian high society at a time when it was almost impossible for a woman to petition against her husband.

Author Wendy has returned to her field of expertise and love of long titles for her latest book, How To Create The Perfect Wife: Georgian Britain's Most Ineligible Bachelor And His Quest To Cultivate The Ideal Woman.

This is the strange story of sociopath Thomas Day who illegally acquired orphans with the intent of grooming one for his future wife.

Born in 1748 and heir to a fortune, he detested the fripperies and materialistic attitudes of his peers and instead yearned for a simple hermetic life to share with a subservient wife.

But when he realised he would never find the woman of his dreams among his social circle, Day seized on Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s ideas of child-raising outlined in the novel Emile.

He began his own bizarre experiment, acquiring two orphan girls aged 11 and 12, who he whisked away to France. Day then attempted to mould himself a wife.

In this meticulously researched account of the man who inspired George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion, the author brings to life not only the eccentric and often repulsive Day, but also an array of fascinating contemporaries such as the poet Anna Seward and French philosopher Rousseau.

This, coupled with Moore's lively prose, makes this historical account a highly entertaining read.

How To Create The Perfect Wife: Georgian Britain's Most Ineligible Bachelor And His Quest To Cultivate The Ideal Woman by Wendy Moore (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, £18.99)