Ford Madox Ford

Ford was born to a German father and an English mother and was raised in London. Ford’s father died when he was a teenager, so he was sent to live with his grandfather in 1889. Ford’s grandfather also lived in London, and while living with him, Ford studied at the University College School. In 1894, Ford married Elsie Martindale and in 1901, the two of them moved to Winchelsea. At the time, Winchelsea was home to many famous writers, including Henry James, Joseph Conrad, Stephen Crane, and H. G. Wells. Ford was already writing himself at this point, although he wouldn’t publish any notable works for quite some time. In 1908, Ford founded The English Review, where he published many famous modernist writers, including Joseph Conrad, William Butler Yeats, D. H. Lawrence, and Ezra Pound. One year later, after many unhappy years of marriage, Ford left his wife to be with Isobel Violet Hunt, the co-founder of The English Review. By this time, Ford had published several notable books including The Inheritors (1901) and Romance (1903), both of which were coauthored with Joseph Conrad. However, it took until 1915 for Ford to publish his first classic: The Good Soldier. Although Ford would go on to publish other notable literary works after The Good Soldier, it is undeniably the work that cemented his literary legacy. It is regularly listed as one of the greatest books in all of English literature by critics and it remains his most read novel by a large margin. After The Good Soldier, Ford’s most famous works Some Do Not… (1924), No More Parades (1925), and A Man Could Stand Up (1926), and Last Post (1928). Collectively, these four books make up the Parade’s End tetralogy. In addition to novels, Ford also wrote essays, memoirs, biographies, poetry, and literary criticism. Ford spent the final years of his teaching at Olivet College in Michigan before falling ill in 1939. He died on June 26, 1939, at the age of 65.