The Good Soldier (Penguin Classics)

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

• Used

  Paperback
  2007

  $4.34

  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

• Used

  Paperback
  1995

  $3.91

  Originally titled The Saddest Story and heralded by Graham Greene as one of the finest novels of our century, Ford's 1915 tale of passion and deceit in the lives of two married couples is a modernist masterpiece. The Norton Critical Edition of The Good Soldier allows the reader to thoroughly study Ford's great work and unravel its mysteries and meanings. This Second Edition is again based on the meticulously edited first text of the novel and offers detailed annotation, a note on the text, and sections on textual variants and manuscript development along with pertinent illustrations. Backgrounds and Contexts brings together important appraisals of the work directly following its publication. Reactions from Rebecca West and Theodore Dreiser are included among the reviews. The section also collects critiques on literary impressionism, including one by Ford, and related writings by Henry James and by frequent Ford collaborator Joseph Conrad, among others. Biographical and Critical Commentary collects differing assessments of The Good Soldier. Contributions from Richard Aldington, Samuel Hynes, John A. Meixner, Frank Kermode, Carol Jacobs, Thomas C. Moser, Ann Barr Snitow, and Vincent J. Cheng are joined by new selections from Colm Toibin, John G. Peters, Max Saunders, Karen A. Hoffman, and Julian Barnes. A Selected Bibliography is also included.

• New

  Paperback
  1989

  $24.25