Perfect Wives in Ideal Homes

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
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 *
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 *
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 *
An uplifting and heartwarming read * Stella *
Nicholson spells out the contradictions of this era so well: a new world dressed in old clothes – David Barnett * Independent on Sunday *
Remarkable. To today’s young, it’ll sound like life on another planet * Daily Mail *
The achievements of the women in this book haunt us and move us to admiration – Tessa Hadley * Guardian *
Insightful social history. Mixing research with a wealth of anecdote, Nicholson brings history to vivid and touching life – Jenny McCartney * Mail on Sunday *
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 *

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. A Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, 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.

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