The Good Soldier: A Tale of Passion (Penguin Modern Classics)

by David Bradshaw (Introduction), Ford Madox Ford (Author), David Bradshaw (Introduction), Ford Madox Ford (Author)

• Used

  Paperback
  2002

  $3.85

  The meeting of John and Florence Dowell and Edward and Leonora Ashbumham in a German health spa is the centre of a train of lies, deceptions, adulterous love triangles and deaths. John Dowell, a memorably unreliable narrator, calls it the saddest story I have ever heard . His narrative distance stems partly from the distance in time of the events, partly from his absence from some of them, but mostly from his ignorance or denial of realities as intimate as his wife's serial deception.

• Used

  Paperback
  1990

  $3.29

  `The only novel of mine that I considered...at all to count'. Ford's study of the complex social and sexual relationship between an Edwardian English and American couple is narrated in such a seemingly haphazard way that it has perplexed and delighted readers since its publication in 1915. Despite its catalogue of death, insanity, and despair, this `Tale of Passion' has many comic moments, and has inspired the work of several distinguished writers, including Graham Greene. This is the only annotated student edition available. This book is intended for students of twentieth-century literature; students of English literature, general readers.

• New

  Paperback
  2007

  $10.87

  Ford Madox Ford's extraordinary novel of passion and betrayal, The Good Soldier, is edited with an introduction by David Bradshaw in Penguin Classics. The Dowells, a wealthy American couple, have been close friends with the Ashburnhams for years. Edward Ashburnham, a first-rate soldier, seems to be the perfect English gentleman, and Leonora his perfect wife, but beneath the surface their marriage seethes with unhappiness and deception. Our only window on the strange tangle of events surrounding Edward is provided by John Dowell, the husband he deceives. Gradually Dowell unfolds a devastating story, in which everyone's honesty is in doubt. The Good Soldier is a masterpiece of narrative skill and emotional depth. David Bradshaw's introduction discusses John Dowell as the classic unreliable narrator and as English literature's most fascinating enigma, and shows how Ford Madox Ford's unconventional narrative structure makes The Good Soldier a modernist masterwork. Ford Madox Ford (1873-1939), born in Surrey and educated in England, Germany and France, changed his original surname, Hueffer, in 1919, after having served with the British army in World War I. As well as founding both the English Review and the Transatlantic Review, home to such writers as James Joyce, Ezra Pound and Gertrude Stein, Ford was the author of more than sixty works including novels, poems, criticism, travel writing and reminiscences. The Good Soldier (1915) is considered his masterpiece. If you enjoyed The Good Soldier, you might like Ford's Parade's End, also available in Penguin Classics, and now the subject of a major new BBC/HBO television miniseries. 'A masterpiece' Julian Barnes, Booker Prize-winning author of The Sense of an Ending 'I don't know how many times in nearly forty years I have come back to this novel' Graham Greene