Truly wonderful... Anna Funder has written another brilliant human portrait. Claire Tomalin A BLAZING GENREBENDING MASTERPIECE FROM ONE OF THE MOST INVENTIVE WRITERS OF OUR TIMELooking for wonder and some reprieve from the everyday Anna Funder slips into the pages of her hero George Orwell. As she watches him create his writing self she tries to remember her own . . .When she uncovers his forgotten wife its a revelation. Eileen OShaughnessys literary brilliance shaped Orwells work and her practical nous saved his life. But why and how was she written out of the storyUsing newly discovered letters from Eileen to her best friend Funder recreates the Orwells marriage through the Spanish Civil War and WW II in London. As she rolls up the screen concealing Orwells private life she is led to question what it takes to be a writer and what it is to be a wife.Compelling and utterly original Wifedom speaks to the unsung work of women everywhere today while offering a breathtakingly intimate view of one of the most important literary marriages of the 20th century. It is a book that speaks to our present moment as much as it illuminates the past.Simply a masterpiece. Here Anna Funder not only remakes the art of biography she resurrects a woman in full. And this in a narrative that grips the reader and unfolds through some of the most consequential moments historical and cultural of the twentieth century. Geraldine Brooks winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction