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Ford Madox Ford ( December 17, 1873 - June 26, 1939) was an English novelist and publisher. Born Ford Hermann Hueffer, he was Ford Madox Hueffer before he finally settled on the name Ford Madox Ford in honor of his grandfather, the Pre-Raphaelite painter Ford Madox Brown, of whom he wrote a biography.
1 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).
Ford also wrote the tetralogy (four related novels) 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.
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 century19th century 20th century 21st century more centuries) Decades: 1900s 1910s 1920s 1930s 1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s As a means of recording the passage of time, the 20th century was that century which lasted from 1901- 2000 in the sense of the Gre. Ford wrote dozens of novels as well as essayAn essay is a short work of authorship. It is a discussion of a topic from an author's personal point of view, as influenced by subjective experience and personal reflection. Topics may include actual happenings, issues of human life, morality, ethics, res, poetryPoetry is an art form in which human language is used for its aesthetic qualities in addition to, or instead of, its notional and semantic content. It consists largely of oral or literary works in which language is used in a manner that is felt by its use, memoirA memoir as a literary genre, forms a sub-class of autobiography. Memoirs may appear less structured and less all-encompassing than formal autobiographical works. They are often about part of a life, and often a public part of one's life, rather than one', and literary criticismLiterary criticism is the study, discussion, evaluation, and interpretation of literature. Modern literary criticism is often informed by literary theory, which is the philosophical discussion of its methods and goals. Though the two activities are closel, and collaborated with Joseph ConradJoseph Conrad ( December 3, 1857 August 3, 1924) was a Polish-born British novelist. Born Jozef Teodor Nalecz Konrad Korzeniowski on December 3, 1857 in Berdyczow, in what is now Ukraine, he was brought up in Russian-occupied Poland. His father, an impove on two novels, The Inheritors (1901) and Romance (1903).
His novel Ladies Whose Bright Eyes (1911) is an ironic tale of involuntary time travelTime travel is a concept that has long fascinated humanity whether it is Merlin experiencing time backwards, or religious traditions like Mohammed's trip to Jerusalem and ascent to heaven, returning before a glass knocked over had spilt its contents. 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.
2 Ford's Promotion of Literature
In 1908, he founded The English Review, in which he published Thomas Hardy, H.G. Wells, Joseph Conrad, Henry James, John Galsworthy, and William Butler Yeats and gave debuts to Wyndham Lewis, D.H. Lawrence, and Norman Douglas. In the 1920s, he founded The Transatlantic Review, a journal with great influence on modern literature. Staying with the artistic community in the Montparnasse Quarter of Paris, France, he made friends with James Joyce, Ernest Hemingway, Gertrude Stein , Ezra Pound, and Jean Rhys, all of whom he would publish. In a later sojourn in the United States, he was involved with Allen Tate, Carolyn Gordon , Katherine Anne Porter, and Robert Lowell, who was then a student. Despite his deep Victorian roots, Ford was always a champion of new literature and literary experimentation.
