Ford Madox Ford
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.
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). In
2001, the book would be named as one of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century by the editorial board of the American Modern Library.
Ford also wrote the tetralogy (four related novels),
Parade's End (1920s), 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. In
2001, this book also would be named as one of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century by the editorial board of the American Modern Library.
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).
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.
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.
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