Ford Madox Ford

Ford Madox Ford (né Joseph Leopold Ford Hermann Madox Hueffer ; 17 December 1873 – 26 June 1939) was an English novelist, poet, critic and editor whose journals The English Review and The Transatlantic Review were important in the development of early 20th-century English and American literature.

In 1889, after the death of their father, Ford and Oliver went to live with their grandfather in London.

Ford attended the University College School in London, but never studied at university.

In November 1892, at 18, he became a Catholic, "very much at the encouragement of some Hueffer relatives, but partly (he confessed) galled by the 'militant atheism and anarchism' of his English cousins."

In 1894, Ford eloped with his school girlfriend Elsie Martindale.

The couple were married in Gloucester and moved to Bonnington in Kent.

They had two daughters, Christina (born 1897) and Katharine (born 1900).

Ford's neighbours in Winchelsea included the authors Joseph Conrad, Stephen Crane, W. H. Hudson, Henry James in nearby Rye, and H. G. Wells.

In 1901, they moved to Winchelsea.

In 1904, Ford suffered an agoraphobic breakdown due to financial and marital problems.

He went to Germany to spend time with family there and undergo treatments.

In 1909, Ford left his wife and set up home with English writer Isobel Violet Hunt, with whom he published the literary magazine The English Review.

Ford's wife refused to divorce him and he attempted to become a German citizen to obtain a divorce in Germany.

This was unsuccessful.

A reference in an illustrated paper to Violet Hunt as "Mrs. Ford Madox Hueffer" gave rise to a successful libel action being brought by Mrs. Elsie Hueffer in 1913.

Ford's relationship with Hunt did not survive the First World War.

Ford is now remembered for his novels The Good Soldier (1915), the Parade's End tetralogy (1924–1928) and The Fifth Queen trilogy (1906–1908).

The Good Soldier is frequently included among the great literature of the 20th century, including the Modern Library 100 Best Novels, The Observer′s "100 Greatest Novels of All Time", and The Guardian′s "1000 novels everyone must read".

Ford was born in Wimbledon in Surrey to Catherine Madox Brown and Francis Hueffer, the eldest of three; his brother was Oliver Madox Hueffer and his sister was Juliet Hueffer, the wife of David Soskice and mother of Frank Soskice.

Ford's father, who became music critic for The Times, was German and his mother English.

His paternal grandfather Johann Hermann Hüffer was first to publish Westphalian poet and author Annette von Droste-Hülshoff.

He was named after his maternal grandfather, the Pre-Raphaelite painter Ford Madox Brown, whose biography he would eventually write.

His mother's older half-sister was Lucy Madox Brown, the wife of William Michael Rossetti and mother of Olivia Rossetti Agresti.

One of Ford's most famous works is the novel The Good Soldier (1915).

Set just before World War I, The Good Soldier chronicles the tragic expatriate lives of two "perfect couples", one British and one American, using intricate flashbacks.

In the "Dedicatory Letter to Stella Ford" that prefaces the novel, Ford reports that a friend pronounced The Good Soldier "the finest French novel in the English language!” Ford pronounced himself a "Tory mad about historic continuity" and believed the novelist's function was to serve as the historian of his own time. However, he was dismissive of the Conservative Party, referring to it as "the Stupid Party."

Ford was involved in British war propaganda after the beginning of World War I.

He worked for the War Propaganda Bureau, managed by C. F. G. Masterman, along with Arnold Bennett, G. K. Chesterton, John Galsworthy, Hilaire Belloc and Gilbert Murray.

Ford wrote two propaganda books for Masterman; When Blood is Their Argument: An Analysis of Prussian Culture (1915), with the help of Richard Aldington, and Between St Dennis and St George: A Sketch of Three Civilizations (1915).

After writing the two propaganda books, Ford enlisted at 41 years of age into the Welsh Regiment of the British Army on 30 July 1915.

He was sent to France.

Between 1918 and 1927, he lived with Stella Bowen, an Australian artist 20 years his junior.

Ford used the name of Ford Madox Hueffer, but changed it to Ford Madox Ford after World War I in 1919, partly to fulfil the terms of a small legacy, partly "because a Teutonic name is in these days disagreeable", and possibly to avoid further lawsuits from Elsie in the event of his new companion, Stella, being referred to as "Mrs Hueffer".

In 1920, Ford and Bowen had a daughter, Julia Madox Ford.

In the summer of 1927, The New York Times reported that Ford had converted a mill building in Avignon, France into a home and workshop that he called "Le Vieux Moulin".

The article implied that Ford was reunited with his wife at this point.

In the early 1930s, Ford established a relationship with Janice Biala, a Polish-born artist from New York, who illustrated several of Ford's later books.

This relationship lasted until the late 1930s.

Ford spent the last years of his life teaching at Olivet College in Olivet, Michigan, US.

He was taken ill in Honfleur, France, in June 1939 and died shortly afterward in Deauville at the age of 65.