The novels of Ford Madox Ford

The novels of Ford Madox Ford were the sublet of a revival of critical attention in the 1960's and interest in his work culminated in the recent publication of a lengthy critical biography (Mizener, 1971). \n \nThe value of these studies lay primarily in their elucidation of the various techniques Ford employed in his novels, but scarcely any notice was taken of the wider historical implications of his work. The object of this thesis, then, is to situate Ford within the cultural and political circumstances in which he wrote. \n \nThe opening chapter suggests the critical approach that will be employed, and is followed by detailed studies of Ford's major novels (Chapters 3, 5 and 7). These are flanked shorter accounts (Chapters 2, 4, 6 and 8) of his lesser novels and of other prose works by Ford that help to illuminate the fiction. Throughout the thesis Ford's novels are treated in chronological order, and are connected with the historical and cultural pressures surrounding their author. Ford's career as a novelist spanned the period between the Boer War and the eve of the Second World War and the thesis argues that his work is best understood as a series of responses to the major changes in English life and letters during that period. A concluding chapter examines Ford's career as a whole and the question of the relationship with both his 'modernist’ contemporaries - James, Conrad, Joyce - and more traditional novelists, such as Wells and Bennett. \n \nThis study agrees with the critical consensus that Ford will chiefly be remembered for The Good Solider end Parade’s end. What is new here, however, is the attempt to place his novels within a somewhat larger historical framework. \n