Books by Ford Madox Ford

A story which traces the history of a house and a family at the time of World War I. This is a picture of Edwardian England at its most opulent. Exploring the themes of love, honour and betrayal, this contemporary of Henry James and Joseph Conrad shows himself their equal in literary skill.

Klassiker. „DETTE ER DEN SØRGELIGSTE HISTORIE, JEG NOGEN SINDE HAR HØRT." Således begynder Ford Madox Ford sin berømte klassiker Den gode soldat. En sørgelig historie; men det er også en fremragende skildring af lidenskabernes spil i et miljø, hvor konventioner, etikette og sociale ambitioner lægger et stramt diktat ned over menneskelivet. I ni år har John og Florence Dowell tilbragt deres somre på et mondænt kursted i Bad Nauheim. Her har de sluttet venskab med ægteparret Ashburnham – et på overfladen distingveret og velfungerende engelsk par, som dog i virkeligheden har voldsomme problemer. I kampen for at bevare ægteskabet, og facaden, tager de alle midler i brug – også andre mennesker. Snart bliver også John og Florence involveret i dette spil, og tæppet kan gå op for sidste akt af den ashburnhamske tragedie.Den gode soldat udkom oprindelig i 1915. Den er sidenhen havnet på både Modern Library's 100 Best Novels, The Observer's 100 Greatest Novels of All Time, og The Guardian's 1000 novels everyone must read.FORD MADOX FORD (1873-1939) blev født ind i en tyskengelsk kunstnerslægt, der blandt andet talte maleren Ford Madox Brown og musikkritikeren Francis Hueffer. Ford førte arven videre og figurerede livet igennem i det internationale kunstnermiljø. Han var medstifter af de betydningsfulde litteraturtidsskrifter The English Review og The Transatlantic Review, arbejdede tæt sammen med forfattervennen Joseph Conrad og blev endvidere i 1920’erne en del af den kreds af modernistiske forfattere, der samlede sig omkring Gertrude Stein i Paris.Ford var uhyre produktiv og nåede at udsende mere end 80 bøger. Foruden hovedværket Den gode soldat kan bl.a. nævnes den succesrige romancyklus Parade’s End (1924-28), der trækker på Fords egne erfaringer fra 1. Verdenskrig.

The first novel in the ‘Parade’s End’ series, ‘Some Do Not’ is widely considered to be a landmark novel surrounding the events that led to World War I. We are introduced to mathematician Christopher Tietjens, who is locked in an unhappy marriage with his wife, Sylvia. However, his relationship with a young Suffragette, Valentine, is starting to become romantic, when he is called away to fight in World War I. Both his private and professional lives will conspire to change him, forever. 'Some Do Not' is a stunning novel for all fans of romance and war fiction.Born in Wimbledon, Joseph Leopold Ford Hermann Madox Hueffer (1873 – 1939) was a prolific poet, novelist, and literary critic, who would become better known by his pen-name, Ford Madox Ford. The grandson of the artist, Ford Madox Brown, he was educated firstly in Kent, before being accepted at the University College School in London.At the age of 21, Ford eloped with his childhood sweetheart, Elsie Martindale. After living at several houses, they finally settled in Winchelsea. There, Ford befriended a number of authors living locally, including HG Wells and Henry James. However, it was Joseph Conrad with whom he decided to collaborate, writing a pirate novel titled ‘Romance’. After a nervous breakdown, Ford went to recover in Germany, which laid the foundations for ‘The Good Soldier´.On returning to England, he founded ‘The English Review’ magazine, before being sent to fight in World War I. When the war finished, Ford spent the rest of his life travelling and writing. He leaves behind him more than 80 books and numerous poems.

The third novel in the ‘Parade’s End’ series, ‘A Man Could Stand Up’ follows the further trials of Christopher Tietjens. Set on Armistice Day 1918, the story sees Tietjens back in London, mulling over the events of World War I. So too, is his beloved Valentine, although gossip has spread about their illicit, romantic entanglements. As each debates their place in a post-war world, the main burning question is whether or not they can find happiness together. A beautifully-written and touching story from one of the best war novelists of the 20th Century, 'A Man Could Stand Up' will delight any person who is interested in World War I literature. Born in Wimbledon, Joseph Leopold Ford Hermann Madox Hueffer (1873 – 1939) was a prolific poet, novelist, and literary critic, who would become better known by his pen-name, Ford Madox Ford. The grandson of the artist, Ford Madox Brown, he was educated firstly in Kent, before being accepted at the University College School in London.At the age of 21, Ford eloped with his childhood sweetheart, Elsie Martindale. After living at several houses, they finally settled in Winchelsea. There, Ford befriended a number of authors living locally, including HG Wells and Henry James. However, it was Joseph Conrad with whom he decided to collaborate, writing a pirate novel called ‘Romance’. After a nervous breakdown, Ford went to recover in Germany, which laid the foundations for ‘The Good Soldier’.On returning to England, he founded ‘The English Review’ magazine, before being sent to fight in World War I. When the war finished, Ford spent the rest of his life travelling and writing. He leaves behind him more than 80 books and numerous poems.

The second book in the ‘Parade’s End’ series, ‘No More Parades’ follows the story of Christopher Tietjens. An Edwardian Englishman through and through, Tietjens is forced to leave his ordered life behind him and join the bedlam of the First World War. Drawing on his own experiences, it’s against this backdrop that Ford describes the domestic battles between Tietjens and his unfaithful wife. Tragic and sometimes harrowing, this book deftly contrasts the chaos of private and personal conflicts against a war that would change the world, forever.Born in Wimbledon, Joseph Leopold Ford Hermann Madox Hueffer (1873 – 1939) was a prolific poet, novelist, and literary critic, who would become better known by his pen-name, Ford Madox Ford. The grandson of the artist, Ford Madox Brown, he was educated firstly in Kent, before being accepted at the University College School in London.At the age of 21, Ford eloped with his childhood sweetheart, Elsie Martindale. After living at several houses, they finally settled in Winchelsea. There, Ford befriended a number of authors living locally, including HG Wells and Henry James. However, it was Joseph Conrad with whom he decided to collaborate, writing a pirate novel titled ‘Romance´. After a nervous breakdown, Ford went to recover in Germany, which laid the foundations for ‘The Good Soldier.’On returning to England, he founded ‘The English Review’ magazine, before being sent to fight in World War I. When the war finished, Ford spent the rest of his life travelling and writing. He leaves behind him more than 80 books and numerous poems.

The Fifth Queen Crowned (1908) is a novel by Ford Madox Ford. The third and final installment of Ford's The Fifth Queen Trilogy is set during the reign of Henry VIII, a tumultuous time of political and religious oppression in a land at the mercy of a murderous King. Ford's trilogy recreates Tudor England in a masterful story of court intrigue, romance, and betrayal. Focusing on the tragic figure of Katharine Howard, the fifth wife of the King, Ford investigates the interconnection of sex and power in a political atmosphere clouded by violence and espionage. Depicting some of the era's most notorious figures, including Thomas Cromwell, Bloody Mary, and the King himself, Ford makes history both entertaining and undeniably human. Brought to the court of King Henry VIII by her cousin Thomas Culpeper, Katharine Howard, a noblewoman whose family's fortunes had been in decline for some time, inadvertently catches the eye of his majesty. Given a position as a lady in waiting for Lady Mary, Howard-though opposed by the brutally efficient schemer Thomas Cromwell-soon distinguishes herself in the eyes of the King, who makes her his fifth Queen. Thrust into the spotlight at the age of seventeen, she finds herself forced into an impossible role as a public figure whose every move could enrage her notoriously violent husband. Howard has traditionally been seen as a minor figure in the history of Tudor England. For Ford, however, a master storyteller with an eye for tragedy and a skill for developing flawed, convincingly human characters, Howard is a woman whose life and death are not only worthy of literature, but instructive for the men and women of Edwardian England. In The Fifth Queen Crowned, he continues the story of Katharine in the aftermath of Thomas Cromwell's demise. Now married to Henry VIII, she finds herself increasingly powerless at court and fears angering the King. Strong willed and eminently good, Katharine is drawn into the controversy surrounding Nicholas Throckmorton, who has been implicated in Wyatt's Rebellion and thrown in prison. As the King grows tired of her willpower and jealous of her relationship with Culpeper, her time as Queen grows increasingly tenuous. With a beautifully designed cover and professionally typeset manuscript, this edition of Ford Madox Ford's The Fifth Queen Crowned is a classic work of British literature reimagined for modern readers.

Romance (1903) is a novel by Ford Madox Ford and Joseph Conrad. One of just three collaborations between two of the greatest English language novelists of the twentieth century, Romance plays to the strengths of each author to weave a tale of adventure, bad luck, and political intrigue. Adapted into The Road to Romance (1927), a lost silent film, Romance remains a highly entertaining and largely forgotten work of English fiction. "What are these days to me? But that far-off day of my romance, when from between the blue and white bales in Don Ramon's darkened storeroom, at Kingston, I saw the door open before the figure of an old man with the tired, long, white face, that day I am not likely to forget." Forced to flee his native England after being accused of smuggling, John Kemp joins his cousin Carlos in Jamaica. Soon, however, he grows wary of their comrade Castro, a shadowy figure who poses a danger to Kemp's anonymity. Setting out on his own, he crosses paths with O'Brien, a notorious Irish nationalist who sees in Kemp an easy target for manipulation. Once again forced to flee for his life, Kemp searches for his cousin, only to find him on his deathbed. Left with no choice, he joins forces with Castro and the local beauty Serafina, who prove the greatest of friends. Eminently entertaining, this swashbuckling adventure is perfect for fans of Conrad and Ford, or for anyone looking to escape into a world of unending romance. With a beautifully designed cover and professionally typeset manuscript, this edition of Joseph Conrad and Ford Madox Ford's Romance is a classic work of British literature reimagined for modern readers.

Some Do Not (1924) is a novel by Ford Madox Ford. Set during the First World War, the novel is the story of Christopher Tietjens, a brilliant statistician and wealthy aristocrat known as "the last Tory." As he moves from a faithless marriage into an affair of his own, eventually volunteering to fight under dubious-perhaps suicidal-motives, Tietjens appears both symbolic and tragically human, a casualty of a dying era dedicating its final breaths to death, despair, and destruction. Adapted for television twice-a 1964 series starring Ronald Hines and Judi Dench, as well as a 2012 series starring Benedict Cumberbatch and Rebecca Hall-Parade's End is essential to Ford's reputation as a leading novelist of the twentieth century. In the words of W. H. Auden, "There are not many English novels which deserve to be called great: Parade's End is one of them." In the years of tenuous peace leading up to the Great War, Christopher Tietjens is known as a brilliant man with a distinguished past and a promising future ahead of him. Behind his successful façade, however, he devotes himself to work in order to avoid confronting his unfaithful wife Sylvia, a prominent aristocrat. Additionally, Tietjens finds himself alienated by a modernizing Britain, which no longer seems to belong to the landed gentry from whom he descends. Caught up in a passionate affair with a beautiful young Suffragette, despairing over his marriage and social life, he decides to enlist in the army at the onset of war with Germany, leaving his peers-but not his past-behind. With a beautifully designed cover and professionally typeset manuscript, this edition of Ford Madox Ford's Some Do Not is a classic work of British literature reimagined for modern readers.

The Good Soldier is set just before World War I and chronicles the tragedy of Edward Ashburnham, the soldier to whom the title refers, and his own seemingly perfect marriage and that of two American friends. The story is narrated by the character John Dowell, half of one of the couples whose dissolving relationships form the subject of the novel. Dowell tells the story of those dissolutions and the deaths of three characters and the madness of a fourth, in a rambling, non-chronological fashion.

"Some Do Not ..." chronicles the life of Christopher Tietjens, "the last Tory", a brilliant government statistician from a wealthy landowning family, who serves in the British Army during the First World War. The novel is the first part of the famous "Parade''s End" tetralogy by Ford Madox Ford. The setting is mainly England and the Western Front of the First World War, in which Ford had served as an officer in the Welch Regiment, a life he vividly depicts.

The Fifth Queen trilogy consists of three historical novels, The Fifth Queen, Privy Seal and The Fifth Queen Crowned. The trilogy presents a fictionalized account of Katharine Howard''s arrival at the Court of Henry VIII, her eventual marriage to the king, and her death. Katharine Howard is introduced as a devout Roman Catholic, impoverished, young noblewoman escorted by her fiery cousin Thomas Culpeper. By accident, she comes to the attention of the king, in a minor way at first, is helped to a position as a lady in waiting for the then bastard Lady Mary, Henry''s eldest daughter, by her old Latin tutor Nicholas Udal. Udal is a spy for Thomas Cromwell, the Lord Privy Seal. As Katharine becomes involved with the many calculating, competing, and spying members of Henry VIII''s Court, she gradually rises, almost against her will, in Court. She is brought more to the attention of the King, becomes involved with him, gets used by Cromwell, Bishop Gardiner and Thomas Cranmer as well as the less powerful though more personally attached Nicholas Throckmorton. Her connection to the latter puts her in some peril, as in January 1554 he is suspected of complicity in Wyatt''s Rebellion and arrested, during which time Katherine is also briefly implicated. Katharine''s forthrightness, devotion to the Old Faith and learning are what make her attractive to the King, along with her youth and physical beauty.

This tetralogy, widely regarded as one of the best novels in English, celebrates the end of an era, the irrevocable destruction of the comfortable, predictable society that vanished during World War I. "There are not many English novels which deserve to be called great: 'Parade's End' is one of them." -W. H. Auden.