The Office Wife

1929. Faith Baldwin was one of the most popular and prolific mid-twentieth century authors of romance fiction. She published eighty-five books, many of them focused on women juggling family and career. Mrs. Murdock knew, when Anne came in to kiss her goodnight, that her daughter had again refused to marry Ted O'Hara. What's the world coming to, she thought, when healthy, pretty girls prefer typewriters to babies? Well, maybe it's just that the right man hasn't come along yet. The problem wasn't nearly as simple as that. Anne Murdock was young and pretty and desirable, but above all she was ambitious. She wasn't too impressed with marriage, as she had observed it in her own family and among her friends. She wanted to climb to the top in business, to have her own life, her own position, her own income. If any man were to matter to her, it would probably be one who had already made his way to the top. Some man like her employer, Mr. Fellowes, head of the Fellowes Advertising Agency. And such men already had wives. Almost inescapably, Larry Fellowes came to matter to Anne, not only as an employer in business but as a vigorous, handsome, attractive man. And pretty, ardent, young Anne Murdock came to matter very much to him. It was, to them, an intense personal problem. But it represents more than that. It is the problem of the human equation in modern business, a new and different problem now that the business world is open to you and intelligent women who want more from life than just a job or just a home and husband.