Parade's End Volume IV

Ford Madox Ford (the name he adopted in 1919: he was originally Ford Hermann Hueffer) was born in Merton, Surrey, in 1873. His mother, Catherine, was the daughter of the Pre-Raphaelite painter Ford Madox Brown. His father, Francis Hueffer, was a German emigré, a musicologist and music critic for The Times. Christina and Dante Gabriel Rossetti were his aunt and uncle by marriage. Ford collaborated with Joseph Conrad from 1898 to 1908, and also befriended many of the best writers of his time, including Henry James, H.G. Wells, Stephen Crane, John Galsworthy and Thomas Hardy. He is best known for his novels, especially The Fifth Queen (1906-8), The Good Soldier (1915) and Parade's End (1924-8). Ford served as an officer in the Welch Regiment 1915-19. After the war he moved to France. In Paris he founded the transatlantic review, taking on Ernest Hemingway as a sub-editor, discovering Jean Rhys and Basil Bunting, and publishing James Joyce and Gertrude Stein. In the 1920s and 1930s he moved between Paris, New York, and Provence. He died in Deauville in June 1939. The author of over eighty books, Ford is a major presence in twentieth-century writing. Paul Skinner took his first degree at the University of the West of England as a mature student, and later completed a PhD on Ford Madox Ford and Ezra Pound at the University of Bristol. He has since taught at both universities, and published articles on Ford, Pound and Rudyard Kipling. His edition of Ford's No Enemy was published by Carcanet in 2002. In 2007 he edited Ford Madox Ford's Literary Contacts, volume 6 of International Ford Madox Ford Studies. He was a bookseller for many years and now works in publishing.