England and the English is Ford Madox Ford’s three-volume exploration of what it means to be English, here published in a single volume for the first time in the United Kingdom. Starting with the brilliantly impressionistic evocations of the chaotic energy of modern London in the first part, Ford proceeds to delve into the rural past that has always been identified as being at the heart of England, before concluding with an investigation of the formation of the English character. Throughout, Ford is the watchful outsider, perceptive, humorous and affectionate towards the complexities of Englishness. A fascinating introduction to the style and preoccupations of this seminal Modernist writer, England and the English has particular resonance for our own times when the sense of national identity is again under scrutiny.

This edition includes Ford’s preface to the one-volume American edition. Sara Haslam’s introduction sets the trilogy in its contemporary context and outlines its significance in Ford’s work.


‘Of the various demands... that he show us the way in which a society works, that he show an understanding of the human heart, that he create characters in 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 craftmanship, there is not one, it seems to me, that Ford does not completely satisfy.'
W. H. AUDEN


COVER PAINTING (detail) by Janice Biala. COVER DESIGN by StephenRaw.com