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Ford Madox Ford (1873 - 1939)

  • About
  • Reviews
  • Ford Madox Ford (the name he adopted in 1919: he was originally Ford Hermann Hueffer) was born in Merton, Surrey, in 1873. His mother, Catherine, was the daughter of the Pre-Raphaelite painter Ford Madox Brown. His father, Francis Hueffer, was a German emigré, a musicologist and music critic for The Times. Christina and Dante Gabriel Rossetti were his aunt and uncle by marriage. Ford published his first book, a children’s fairytale, when he was seventeen. He collaborated with Joseph Conrad from 1898 to 1908, and also befriended many of the best writers of his time, including Henry James, H.G. Wells, Stephen Crane, John Galsworthy and Thomas Hardy. He is best known for his novels, especially The Fifth Queen (1906–8), The Good Soldier (1915) and Parade’s End (1924–8). He was also an influential poet and critic, and a brilliant magazine editor. He founded the English Review in 1908, discovering D.H.Lawrence, Wyndham Lewis and Ezra Pound, who became another close friend. Ford served as an officer in the Welch Regiment 1915–19. After the war he moved to France. In Paris he founded the transatlantic review, taking on Ernest Hemingway as a sub-editor, discovering Jean Rhys and Basil Bunting, and publishing James Joyce and Gertrude Stein. In the 1920s and 1930s he moved between Paris, New York, and Provence. He died in Deauville in June 1939. The author of over eighty books, Ford is a major presence in twentieth-century writing.

    Of his novels, Carcanet publish The Good Soldier, Parade's End, The Rash Act and Ladies Whose Bright Eyes. Carcanet also publish The English Novel, The Ford Madox Ford Reader, A History of Our Own Time and Selected Poems, War Prose, Return to Yesterday, and other titles. Some of these have been released as part of The Millennium Ford series, which aims to bring all his major work back into circulation.



    Praise for Ford Madox Ford (1873 - 1939) 'Of the various demands one can make of the novelist, that he show us the way in which a society works, that he show an understanding of the human heart, that he create characters whose reality we believe and for whose fate we care, that he describe things and people so that we feel their physical presence, that he illuminate our moral consciousness, that he make us laugh and cry, that he delight us by his craftsmanship, there is not one, it seems to me, that Ford does not completely satisfy. There are not many English novels which deserve to be called great: Parade's End is one of them.'
    W.H.Auden, 1961 
    An exciting event this year has been the publication of Carcanet's ambitious edition of Ford Madox Ford's great Tietjens quartet of books, with new notes and new matieral. read more

    THE TIMES  Saturday June 24th 1989  The Arts  
    Ford Madox Ford wrote 82 books yet had three people at his funeral 50 years ago. read more

    The Tablet, 11th December 1999. read more
    Ford Madox Ford was a founder of influential literary magazines: the English Review , in 1908, and the Transatlantic Review , in 1924. read more
    The final book in Ford Madox Ford's four-volume novel is a study of the attitudes and anxieties in post-1918 Britain. read more
    The Panorama of Ford Madox Ford Ford Madox Ford was a man full of contradictions. read more
    It was after being 'blown into the air' by a shell near Becourt Wood in 1916 that Ford Madox Ford applied himself to finding the literary means of conveying the First World War's impact on human consciousness. read more
    The Panorama of Ford Madox Ford Ford Madox Ford was a man full of contradictions. read more
    It was after being 'blown into the air' by a shell near Becourt Wood in 1916 that Ford Madox Ford applied himself to finding the literary means of conveying the First World War's impact on human consciousness. read more
    The Panorama of Ford Madox Ford Ford Madox Ford was a man full of contradictions. read more
    It was after being 'blown into the air' by a shell near Becourt Wood in 1916 that Ford Madox Ford applied himself to finding the literary means of conveying the First World War's impact on human consciousness. read more
    Among the literary giants of the early 20th century - Conrad, Hardy, D.H. read more
    I always came out second-best in all my stories", admitted Ford Madox Ford, who has fared little better in death. read more
    Among the literary giants of the early 20th century - Conrad, Hardy, D.H. read more
    I always came out second-best in all my stories", admitted Ford Madox Ford, who has fared little better in death. read more
    Among the literary giants of the early 20th century - Conrad, Hardy, D.H. read more
    I always came out second-best in all my stories", admitted Ford Madox Ford, who has fared little better in death. read more
    Half-German grandson of the artist Ford Madox Brown, the novelist FM Ford observes his almost-native land in this trio of delightful studies from 1905-07. read more
    Back in the Bookshops Ford Madox Ford is today little more than a name, easily confused with that of his Pre-Raphaelite grandfather, Ford Madox Browne. read more
    One of the best books I have ever read about Englishness is Ford Madox Ford's trilogy England and the English , published between 1905 and 1907, elegantly reissued in one volume by Carcanet in 2003. read more
    Charlotte Taylor reviews two Ford Madox Ford volumes, Critical Essays and War Prose
    American Scholar, Summer 2004 volume 73
    "I love sweeping dicta; they awaken trains of thought, they suggest," wrote Ford Madox Ford. read more
    Charlotte Taylor reviews two Ford Madox Ford volumes, Critical Essays and War Prose
    American Scholar , Summer 2004 volume 73 "I love sweeping dicta; they awaken trains of thought, they suggest," wrote Ford Madox Ford. read more
    Best books... read more
    TIMES EDUCATIONAL SUPPLEMENT  Priory House, St John's Lane, London EC1N 4BX  26 May 1989  
    Ford Madox Ford: A History of Our Own Times .  Edited by Solon Beinfeld and Sondra Stang.  read more
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