Ford Madox Ford

Ford Madox Ford (December 17, 1873 - June 26, 1939) was an English novelist and publisher.

Ford's Novels

One of his most famous works is The Good Soldier (1915), a short novel which is set just before World War I and which chronicles the tragedies of the lives of two "perfect couples" using intricate flashbacks (a literary technique pioneered by Ford).

Related Topics:
The Good Soldier - World War I - Flashback - Literary technique

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Ford also wrote the tetralogy Parade's End (1924-28), set in England and on the Western Front in World War I, where he served as an officer in the Royal Welch Fusiliers, a life vividly depicted in the novels.

Related Topics:
Tetralogy - Parade's End - England - Western Front - Royal Welch Fusiliers

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Both The Good Soldier and Parade's End depict the confusion and despair attendant on a long undisturbed English aristocracy upon the arrival of the 20th century. Ford wrote dozens of novels as well as essays, poetry, memoir, and literary criticism, and collaborated with Joseph Conrad on two novels, The Inheritors (1901) and Romance (1903).

Related Topics:
20th century - Essay - Poetry - Memoir - Literary criticism - Joseph Conrad

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His novel Ladies Whose Bright Eyes (1911) is an ironic tale of involuntary time travel whose protagonist discovers that he does not know how to make a gun, or where there are tin deposits, or in fact anything that would make him useful in the medieval castle community into which he has fallen. It is the reverse of Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, but the details of daily life are rendered more feelingly. Cathedrals, so stately and calm to us, turn out to have been crowded, garish, noisy, and commercial. And, unlike Twain's Yankee, Ford's hero finds himself in the arms of a lady.

Related Topics:
Time travel - Medieval - Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court

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