'A joyous, exuberant book of poems about women usually excluded from myth and history' Guardian

'Duffy takes a cheeky, subversive, no-nonsense swipe with a dish-clout at the famous men of history and myth. They don't have a chance in hell of dodging her quick-witted wallop as she relays their stories from their spouse's points of view' The Times

Carol Ann Duffy's virtuoso fifth collection, and her first themed, is undoubtedly one that brought her to a wider readership than any other contemporary poet. As the saying goes 'behind every famous man is a great woman' - and from the sharp-tongued Mrs Darwin to the lascivious Frau Freud, from the adoring Queen Kong to the long-suffering wife of the Devil himself, each one steps from her counterpart's shadow to tell her side of the story in this irresistible collection.

First published in 1999 and at once lauded as original, full of imagination and radical wit, The World's Wife is a feminist classic.