What. The fuck. Even. Okay, so a friend of mine gave books away as wedding favors and I picked this because I was curious. It sounded like it could be funny, as the premise was about an intelligent monkey falling in love with an English teacher she met when he was on a mission in Africa. I also wanted to get a sense of who this book was written for (because, really, who wants to read about a monkey loving a man?) and at the very least, I figured it would be amusing.Well I was wrong. This book is...

Well, this certainly was a book! Not a fun book, one full of racism and sexism and irritatingness, but certainly a book!Note: The rest of this review has been withdrawn due to the changes in Goodreads policy and enforcement. You can read why I came to this decision here.In the meantime, you can read the entire review at Smorgasbook

This is a perfect quirky books for romantics. My boyfriend swore up & down that he wouldn't fall for Emily, the chimp...But he did. Who wouldn't love Emily? "His Monkey Wife" is a perfect escapist comedy!

This book is certainly an interesting premise...a chimpanzee who falls in love with the man who has taken her as his pet. It is also a satire of society in the 1930's when it was written. While I found the book to be really interesting and very witty in some parts, I also had a very hard time getting into it mainly because of the very flowery writing. Also, I think it was a bit dated. Overall, I would say it was a good read.

A lovely fable and commentary of British manners and society in the flapper years... The language is quite sophisticated, which will slow the reading down for many (me included!), but the resolution was worth the extra work... This was highly recommended by my hero librarian, Nancy Pearl, Queen of Readers ;)

The only aspect of this book I did not enjoy was the chimpanzee's near-nauseating love for the main male character. Otherwise, the chimp was an interesting and vibrant character, far surpassing the other females (all human) in personality. A different sort of love triangle, to be sure.

I had a hard time gettting into this one because of Collier's line-work here, cluttered as it is with overlong preambles or setups and too many adjectives, neither of which two bad habits is present in his book of short stories.

Jane Austen-ish satire meets highly intelligent monkey and crazy fun shenanigans. That was my impression of it. Eat a banana while reading.

Oh dear. I really loved Collier's short stories and occasionally this does sparkle but setting aside the racism as both a product of it's time and something that only crops up a lot near the start and end of this novel... I still couldn't get past the sexism. Yes, some women are venal. Yes, some men are decent enough chaps who make the mistake of marrying the kind of person who gives weight to the arguments of sexist idiots. However the answer to solving the difficulty of pairing off those fooli...

This really is quite a delight of a book, with a highly original and frequently laugh-out-loud narrative.Alfred Fatigay is a young British man, out teaching in a remote village in the Congo. His fiancee, it transpires, has encouraged him to go...she seems in no hurry to tie the knot. Meanwhile he has acquired a pet chimpanzee, Emily. And while she never masters speech, Emily - sitting in on lessons- soon understands everything that is said, beside becoming highly literate, all unknown to her own...

A clever, cynical book which will appeal to those who enjoy Saki. The characters are weak, manipulative or cruel. Emily, while depicted as a pure, romantic heroine without the power of speech, is a devious and ruthless chimp who stops at nothing to get her rather dull, mediocre man. Her rival is a duplicitous and immoral young woman with links to London's pretentious literary set. Collier wrote a review of his own book. He said of himself, 'He seems to dislike almost everything and everybody in

Admittedly, this requires quite a leap of the imagination, but behind the highly improbable plot lies an hilarious and amazingly well-observed look at human nature and relationships which is still relevant today. I didn't find this a particularly easy read. Some of the sentences are so long that, by the time you get to the end, you may have quite forgotten what it was actually about. I'm glad I persevered, though, as this is one of the most thought-provoking and original books I've read in a lon...

This is a very bizarre story that I'm still trying to assimilate and ruminate. Is it a broad satire on the nature of love and marriage and inter-species affection? Is the idea of a chimp-wife a bold attempt at addressing colonialism? Is Collier just one crazy mo-fo? Maybe it is all of the above. Funny as hell at times, too.

Beautifully written, appallingly racist and sexist. Pretty standard fare for early 20th century colonialist trash.

NPR raved about its humor

Huh! All these years, and until this moment I never knew the difference between a Foreword, a Preface, and an Introduction. I found Eva Brann's Introduction to His Monkey Wife quite delightful. Here's how she starts - "It is a truth universally acknowledged that an unattached monkey in possession of a liberal education must be in want of a human husband". See what I mean? Eva lets us know upfront that our heroine, Emily the chimp, gets her man in the end. Eva gives us a tour of the genre of prim...

I'm not sure what my mother was thinking but I was a very advanced reader as a child. (My mother set up an old easy chair in a bosky willow glade for me, then I spent so much time there reading she was annoyed! HaHaHa!) When I was 12, my mother gave me "His Monkey Wife" because she loved it so much. I liked it. But I did not get all the literary references. It was just fun. 15 years later, I was much more literary, I read it again. And again. It is now one of my favorite books which I re-read ev...

This is another one of those lost-gem books that for some reason not many people are reading today. The LA Times called this a work of genius and it was correct. The bizarre premise involves a proper early 20th-century British gent who adopts a female chimp who turns out to be preternaturally bright and falls in love with him. And the less I say after that the better, except note that this was written in 1930, and note the title. Despite it's age, it still goes where no man has gone before. And

I found this book by way of the 'Forgotten Classics' column in The Times, and I'm glad I did. First, I'm partial to fiction from the 1930's - and as with any specialism, once you know a few of them it makes the rest more fun. The plot is available elsewhere, but I would agree with those who say the somewhat Edwardian style takes a bit of getting used to. I had to look up the definition of some words, which I haven't had to do in years. Still, it's a treasure and deserves to be more widely read,

I heard about this book from Mike Dirda's column and thought I would try it, but it was not my cup of tea. It was somewhat amusing but then it got a little old, very quickly and I did not see any brighter future. Perhaps the writing was not as light as it needed to be, or the idea just wears out. Only got half way through and decided to read Death and the Penguin instead. I dropped the monkey for the penguin.

Quite bizarre, quite entertaining. Emily, the chimp, is the most loyal of creatues and for that she finds the reward she seeks and deserves. Of course, teaching herself to read and type helps her through the "civilized" world! Strong writing. Rich with literary references. Easy to see how Collier's style and subject are akin to Hitchcock, Bradbury or Serling.

I liked the plot and storyline, but it could have been told in a lot less words, or words that added to the story and enhanced it instead of being meaningless. I was able to skip most of it (speed read) and get the nuances of it all without reading a great deal of added fluff.

this is a great book, so clever...

Clever. Believe it would make a great play.