Ford Madox Ford

A Biography of Ford Madox Ford

Ford Madox Ford was born on the 17th of December, 1873 in Surrey, England. He belonged to an artistic and literary family. His father was a music critic, his grandfather published the works of a Westphalian poet, and his other grandfather was a Pre-Raphaelite painter.

Ford was born in Surrey, England in 1873, Pixabay

When Ford was a teenager, he moved with his mother and siblings to London. There he graduated from the University College School in London and converted to Catholicism. He eloped with his girlfriend Elsie Martindale in 1894 and had two daughters.

In 1901, Ford worked with Joseph Conrad on a few novels for nearly five years. Together they wrote The Inheritors (1901), Romance (1903), and The Nature of Crime (1924). At the same time, Ford was working on a trilogy of historical novels about Catherine Howard titled The Fifth Queen (1906-1908).

In 1904, Ford began to suffer from agoraphobia and ran off to Germany where he set up a home with the writer Isobel Violet Hunt.

There he began working on The English Review in 1908, which would become an influential literary magazine. In The English Review, he published many authors including Thomas Hardy, Joesph Conrad, and William Butler Yeats. In 1911, Ford wrote Ladies Whose Bright Eyes (1911) which included a unique twist on the time travel genre.

Ford's experiences as a soldier in WWI greatly influenced his writing, Pixabay

During the First World War (1914-1918), Ford wrote one of his most recognized novels, The Good Soldier (1915). During the war, Ford also contributed to British war propaganda and even worked for the War Propaganda Bureau through which he wrote two books: When Blood is Their Argument: An Analysis of Prussian Culture (1915) and Between St. Denis and St. George: A Sketch of Three Civilizations (1915).

Ford also enlisted in the British Army in 1915 to help the war effort. His experiences with war helped inspire a novel series he'd write nearly a decade later, Parade's End (1924-1928). After the war, Ford lived with Stella Bowen, an artist, and together they had a daughter. Ford moved to Avignon, France during this period. In 1929, Ford wrote The English Novel: From the Earliest Days to the Death of Joseph Conrad (1929) to chronicle the history of the English novel. By the 1930s, Ford was with Janice Biala who would illustrate many of Ford's books.

During the Spanish Civil War, Ford became once again embroiled in politics and heavily supported the efforts of the Republicans. He firmly stood against the fascist leadership of Franco, Mussolini, and Hitler.

As well as his literary contributions to literature, Ford's role as a literary critic helped raise many young writers to prominence. His editorials in The English Review and The Transatlantic Review helped authors such as George Seldes and Ernest Hemingway.

Ford's role as a literary critic helped many authors reach recognition, Pixabay

Towards the end of his life, Ford took a position teaching at the Olivet College in Michigan.

Ford Madox Ford: Cause of Death

Ford Madox Ford died on June 26, 1939, penniless and sick in Deauville, France. He had spent the last few months before his death, warning about the rise of antisemitism and totalitarianism in Europe and tried to interest publishers to publish on these growing threats. He died before the outbreak of World War II. He lived to be 65 years old.

Novels by Ford Madox Ford

Here are Ford Madox Ford's most notable novels.

Ford wrote many novels including The Good Soldier, Pixabay

The Good Soldier (1915)

The Good Soldier follows the story of Edward Ashburnham and is narrated by John Dowell. Dowell's unreliable narration through a series of flashbacks and non-chronological order focuses on the dissolution of the marriages of Edward and two American friends, including Dowell. Nothing is quite as it seems as the perfect world seems to disintegrate the more Dowell tells his story. The novel was seen as pioneering as it included non-chronological flashbacks and an unreliable narrator which enhanced the work's literary impressionist qualities.

The Fifth Queen Trilogy (1906-1908)

The Fifth Queen Trilogy contains three books, The Fifth Queen: And How She Came to Court (1906), Privy Seal (1907), and The Fifth Queen Crowned (1908). It is a historical fiction novel that chronicles the life of Catherine Howard from her arrival in Henry VIII's court until her death. It is considered another of Ford's impressionist masterpieces and fictionalizes true events with liberties taken on dialogue and setting.

Parade's End (1924-1928)

Parade's End is made up of four distinct works, Some Do Not... (1924), No More Parades (1925), A Man Could Stand Up-- (1926), and Last Post (1928). The stories follow the life of an English Gentry before, during, and after the First World War and are heavily inspired by Ford's experiences in the war. However, despite its setting being the war, it focuses less on the experience of war and more on the psychological effect of the war on soldiers and society. It is considered one of Ford's most modernist pieces.

Poems by Ford Madox Ford

Ford's most famous poem is "Antwerp", Pixabay

In addition to his influential novels, Ford Madox Ford was known for his modernist poetry. Ford often experimented with different forms of poetry but showed favorable interest in free verse, off-rhyme, repetition, and non-linear chronologies. Many of Ford's poems are on or surround the subject of war. Ford Madox Ford's most famous poem is the modernist Antwerp (1915) which depicts the resistance of Belgian forces to the German invasion of 1914.

In this excerpt from Ford's Poem 'Antwerp', Ford questions the purpose of a man spending his days in the muddy trenches with guns waiting for the upcoming gloom of war, which ultimately leads to death, destruction, and trauma. Ford wants to know how anyone truly benefits from fighting in such wars.

Other poetry by Ford includes:

• New Poems (1927)
• Collected Poems (1914)
• High Germany (1911)
• The Face of the Night (1904)

Analysis of Ford's Writing

Ford Madox Ford is often associated with the Imagist Movement of the early 20th century alongside authors such as Ezra Pound and the founder T.E. Hulme.

As a Modernist writer, Ford Madox Ford also heavily relied on the principles of Impressionism in his work. In his view of literary Impressionism, Ford believed that a writer should take all the opinions of the day and place them in writing truthfully, restraining from any form of exaggeration. Ford wanted to portray all the different peoples, places, and emotions that were occurring simultaneously rather than simply focus on one thing at a time. All the experiences felt in his novels, he wanted to be plausible in real life.

Ford considered his work to be Impressionist which was also prominent in the art world, Pixabay

Influence of Ford Madox Ford

In addition to his novels and poems, Ford founded two literary journals, The English Review and The Transatlantic Review. Ford founded The English Review because he wanted to publish a piece titled "A Sunday Morning Tragedy" (1904) by the English novelist, Thomas Hardy, which had been rejected by other publications. Ford wanted The English Review to discover and promote authors who experimented with their writing in search of new and innovative pieces. Ford headed The English Review until 1910 and helped authors such as D.H. Lawrence, Henry James, and H.G. Wells publish some of their pieces.

Later in his career, Ford founded The Transatlantic Review which, similarly to The English Review, searched for modern and innovative writers. Authors such as Ernest Hemingway, Gertrude Stein, and James Joyce, all significant writers in literature, were published in The Transatlantic Review. The list of authors Ford helped by publishing them in his journals is numerous, but Ford received very little credit for helping many young authors reach recognition for their work, including Ernest Hemingway. Only recently has the significance and influence of Ford Madox Ford on literature been recognized.

Quotes by Ford Madox Ford

Here are some Ford Madox Ford quotes.

Ford often wrote about the psychological experiences of war. In his poem, "Claire de Lune" Ford wishes to hear the silence of the moonlight without the sounds of war. He wishes to stand up from behind a place of protection and walk the war-ruined streets, without any more machine guns whirring by. The concrete images and emotions in this poem are examples of the Imagist movement to which Ford belonged.

In this excerpt from Ford's The Good Soldier, the reader can see a glimpse into Ford's way of creating concrete images that convey a feeling. By describing the visual of a man standing on the steps of a hotel before fetching his woman, we can sense hesitancy in his actions.