Editing Ford Madox Ford (section)

==Literary life==
[[File:Ford Madox Ford 80 Campden Hill Road blue plaque.jpg|thumb|Blue plaque, 80 [[Campden Hill Road]], Kensington, London]]

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 [[flashback (literary technique)|flashback]]s. In the "Dedicatory Letter to Stella Ford" that prefaces the novel, Ford reports that a friend pronounced ''The Good Soldier'' "the finest [[French literature|French novel]] in the English language!" Ford pronounced himself a "[[Conservative Party (UK)|Tory]] mad about historic continuity" and believed the novelist's function was to serve as the historian of his own time.<ref>{{cite journal|jstor=441444|title=The Tory in a Time of Change: Social Aspects of Ford Madox Ford's Parade's End|first=Gene M.|last=Moore|date=23 December 1982|journal=Twentieth Century Literature|volume=28|issue=1|pages=49–68|doi=10.2307/441444}}</ref> However, he was dismissive of the [[Conservative Party (UK)|Conservative Party]], referring to it as "the Stupid Party."<ref>{{cite book |last1=Ford |first1=Ford Madox |title=Memories and Impressions: A Study in Atmospheres |url=https://archive.org/details/memoriesimpressi00ford |date=1911 |publisher=Harper & Brothers |page=[https://archive.org/details/memoriesimpressi00ford/page/193 193]}}</ref>

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. Ford's combat experiences and his previous propaganda activities inspired his [[tetralogy]] ''[[Parade's End]]'' (1924–1928), set in England and on the [[Western Front (World War I)|Western Front]] before, during and after World War I.

[[File:FifthQueen-cvr archive-org (PD).jpg|thumb|Cover of ''[[The Fifth Queen|The Fifth Queen: And How She Came to Court]]'' (1906) by Ford Madox Ford, then known as Ford Madox Hueffer]]

Ford wrote dozens of novels as well as essays, poetry, memoirs and literary criticism. He collaborated with [[Joseph Conrad]] on three novels, ''[[The Inheritors (Joseph Conrad and Ford Madox Ford)|The Inheritors]]'' (1901), ''[[Romance (novel)|Romance]]'' (1903) and ''[[The Nature of a Crime]]'' (1924, although written much earlier). During the three to five years after this direct collaboration, Ford's best known achievement was ''[[The Fifth Queen]]'' trilogy (1906–1908), historical novels based on the life of [[Katherine Howard|Katharine Howard]],<ref>{{cite book |last=Ford |first=Ford Madox |url=https://archive.org/details/fifthqueenfift00ford/mode/2up?view=theater |title=The Fifth Queen |publisher=The Vanguard Press |year=1963 |location=New York |page= |pages=[https://archive.org/details/fifthqueenfift00ford/page/n1/mode/2up?view=theater From the description on the dust jacket] by [[Graham Greene]] ''et seq.'' |url-access=registration}}</ref> which Conrad termed, at the time, "the swan song of historical romance."<ref name=Judd157>{{cite book
  | last = Judd
  | first = Alan
  | title = Ford Madox Ford
  | url = https://archive.org/details/fordmadoxford00judd
  | url-access = registration
  | publisher = Harvard University Press
  | location = Cambridge, MA
  | year = 1991
  | page = [https://archive.org/details/fordmadoxford00judd/page/157 157]| isbn = 9780674308152
 }}</ref>
Ford's poem "Antwerp" (1915) was praised by [[T. S. Eliot]] as "the only good poem I have met with on the subject of the war".<ref>{{cite web |url=http://modernism.research.yale.edu/wiki/index.php/Antwerp |title=Antwerp |first=Pericles |last=Lewis |access-date=12 March 2013 |archive-date=23 June 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170623082107/http://modernism.research.yale.edu/wiki/index.php/Antwerp |url-status=dead }}</ref>

Ford's novel ''[[Ladies Whose Bright Eyes]]'' (1911, extensively revised in 1935)<ref>{{cite journal| first= Richard A. | last= Cassell| title= The Two Sorrells of Ford Madox Ford| journal= [[Modern Philology]]| volume= 59| number= 2| date= November 1961| pages= 114–121 | doi= 10.1086/389447| jstor= 434869| s2cid= 154530201}}</ref> is a [[time travel]] novel, like [[Mark Twain|Twain]]'s classic ''[[A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court]]'', only dramatising the difficulties, not the rewards, of such idealised situations.

When the [[Spanish Civil War]] broke out, Ford took the side of the left [[Republican faction (Spanish Civil War)|Republican faction]], declaring: "I am unhesitatingly for the existing Spanish Government and against Franco's attempt—on every ground of feeling and reason&nbsp;... Mr Franco wishes to establish a government resting on the arms of Moors, Germans, Italians. Its success must be contrary to world conscience."<ref name="Saunders">{{cite book |last1=Saunders |first1=Max |title=Ford Madox Ford: A Dual Life: Volume II: The After-War World |date=2012 |publisher=Oxford University Press |pages=627–628}}</ref> His opinion of Mussolini and Hitler was likewise negative, and he offered to sign a manifesto against Nazism.<ref name="Saunders" />