Book Description

Ford Madox Ford is a legendary figure who, like his friends James Joyce and Ezra Pound, came close to the very centre of modern literature. He wrote the masterpieces The Good Soldier and Parade's End, collaborated extensively with Joseph Conrad, and was the first editor of Finnegans Wake. As editor of literary magazines and one of the most important voices in the literary salons and clubs of the early twentieth century, Ford encouraged and published a truly remarkable group of writers. These include Henry James, Leo Tolstoy, H.G. Wells, Thomas Hardy, Ezra Pound, W.B. Yeats, Wyndham Lewis and D.H. Lawrence. The title of Arthur Mizener's biography, The Saddest Story, is the title Ford wanted to give The Good Soldier. The life of Ford Madox Ford is one of wasted opportunities, ill-focused ambition and deserved but ungained recognition. Out of the contradictory, fascinating jumble of Ford's life, Mizener skillfully dissects the many messy affairs with women like Jean Rhys, as well as his explosive relationships with publishers and critics in London and Paris.