Wifedom: Mrs. Orwell's Invisible Life

Anna Funder is an Australian author who is trained in English literature, German, and human rights law. She has written several books, three of which (including Wifedom) have won awards and are international best-sellers. In addition to her career as a best-selling author, which figures prominently in the book, she is also a wife and mother. Despite her significant successes in multiple professional arenas, Funder explains that she feels a kinship with Eileen in their shared experience as women—specifically women who are wives and mothers. Although Funder’s marriage is largely equitable and she and her husband are happy together, she shows that even with a supportive partner, women in the modern era tend to shoulder a larger share of the domestic labor.

Funder’s own experience is important to the book not just because she is the author, but because she connects herself to the other two primary figures: Eileen and Orwell. Like Eileen, Funder is a wife who finds herself being smothered by the domestic expectations of wifedom and motherhood. She therefore uses her own experiences to imagine how Eileen must have felt about her life with Orwell, especially given all the work that was required to keep the family afloat and to keep Orwell writing.