The World's Wife by Carol Ann Duffy

Wildflower & Rose Bookstore's July 2025 Book Club Pick:

The World's Wife by Carol Ann Duffy

For details on our monthly book club at Three Pines Petersburg, please see The Literary Mansion Society page or our Facebook group. You are not required to purchase the book from us to participate in the book club. You do not have to participate in the book club to purchase the book.

This book is currently in stock and available for purchase. All copies available are used and have some wear and tear, which is why they are priced lower than our  book club copies typically are. After purchasing, we will notify you and offer options for delivery/pick up/shipping arrangements.

USE DISCOUNT CODE NOSHIP TO REMOVE SHIPPING FEES IF YOU PLAN TO SCHEDULE A PICK UP OR OPT FOR DELIVERY TO A PETERSBURG ADDRESS.

Be terrified.
It's you I love,
perfect man,
Greek God, my own;
but I know you'll go,
betray me, stray
from home.
So better by far for
me if you were stone.
—from "Medusa"

Stunningly original and haunting, the voices of Mrs. Midas, Queen Kong, and Frau Freud, to say nothing of the Devil's Wife herself, startle us with their wit, imagination, and incisiveness in this collection of poems written from the perspectives of the wives, sisters, or girlfriends of famous—and infamous—male personages. Carol Ann Duffy is a master at drawing on myth and history, then subverting them in a vivid and surprising way to create poems that have the pull of the past and the crack of the contemporary.