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The story of an English gentleman's relationship with two women. Ford's themes are reminiscent of Henry James: the tensions between desire and social conventions and expectations; the dilemmas when personal moral values are challenged by life's unexpected turns and tribulations. - Summary by Anthony Ogus

After a train accident, one Mr. Sorrell finds himself transported back to the Middle Ages, where he is mistaken for a Greek slave who works miracles. As he becomes acclimated to the customs and way of life of the time, and then as he falls in love, he finds himself feeling increasingly at home in the past. But will he be able to stay there? Summary by Scarbo

Brought to you by Penguin. Consisting of four novels - Some Do Not..., No More Parades, A Man Could Stand Up and The Last Post - Parade's End is the story of Christopher Tietjens and his progress from the secure world of Edwardian England into the First World War and beyond. Both a portrait of a...

Set just before World War I, The Good Soldier is a tragic, psychologically rich novel of love, betrayal and illusion. It is regarded as one of Ford's best works, and has been adapted for theatre, television and radio. Poignant and intricately crafted, The Good Soldier is told through the eyes of John Dowell, an unreliable and often naïve narrator. Through fragmented and non-linear storytelling, Dowell recounts the breakdown of his marriage to Florence, and the deterioration of Edward and Leonora's relationship, his prior friends.

This is the second novel in the series of four, depicting the meeting, courtship and ultimate fulfilment of two modern heroes, Christopher Tietjens and Valentine Wannop, despite social condemnation, personal travails and World War I.

The Last Post, the fourth and final volume of Parade's End, is set on a single post-war summer's day. Valentine Wannop and Christopher Tietjens share a cottage in Sussex with Tietjens' brother and sister-in-law. Through their differing perspectives, Ford explores the tensions between his characters in a changing world, haunted by the experience of war, facing an insecure future for themselves and for England.

The first volume of Parade's End introduces the central characters: Christopher Tietjens, a brilliant, unconventional mathematician; his dazzling but unfaithful wife Sylvia; and the young Suffragette Valentine Wannop. It starts with the cataclysmic meeting of Tietjens and Valentine: a weekend whose violence prefigures the coming war.

A Man Could Stand Up, the third volume of Parade's End, brings Ford's characters to the 'crack across the table of History', across which lie their uncertain post-war futures. Divided into three parts, the novel is a kaleidoscopic vision of a society at climactic moment.

Ford Madox Ford's Parade's End tetralogy, written in the aftermath of World War I, was originally published in four parts in the 1920s: Some Do Not…; No More Parades; A Man Could Stand Up —; and Last Post. Highlighting the tension between traditional values and a rapidly changing social order in a world embroiled in war, the story details Tietjens' turmoils in both his personal life and on the warfront—and what follows when some of those struggles become one and the same.

The Fifth Queen is Ford Maddox Ford’s masterful trilogy of historical fiction centered on Katharine Howard, a young girl of a proud, noble, and impoverished family who catches the jaded eye of Henry VIII and becomes his controversial fifth Queen.

Joseph Conrad (1857 – 1924) was a Polish-British writer regarded as one of the greatest novelists to write in the English language. Though he did not speak English fluently until his twenties, he was a master prose stylist who brought a non-English sensibility into English literature. Conrad wrote stories and novels, many with a nautical setting, that depict trials of the human spirit in the midst of what he saw as an impassive, inscrutable universe. Conrad collaborated in some works with Ford Madox Ford. Ford (1873 – 1939) was an English novelist, poet, critic and editor whose journals ...

First published in 1925, No More Parades received high praise from critics, with The Observer declaring the initial 100 pages to easily surpass in truth, brilliance, and subtlety everything else that has yet been written in England about the physical circumstances and moral atmosphere of the war. As the second novel in the Parades End tetralogy, it follows army captain Christopher Tietjens—a former civil servant and statistician—alongside his beautiful yet cruel wife Sylvia, and his jealous and tempestuous godfather, General Campion. Set in the tumultuous backdrop of Rouen, France in 1917,...

In this delightful tale, the naive and sheltered Queen Eldrida learns the secret of flight from her friend the bat and sets off by air for a series of unusual adventures. In her travels she meets new friends - and foes - and discovers the joy of being of use to her fellows. (Summary by Scarbo)

This is the second book in Ford's Fifth Queen trilogy, a series of historical novels presenting a fictionalized version of the life of Katharine Howard, the fifth wife of Henry VIII. In this installment, the king is becoming increasingly drawn to Katharine. He is married to Anne of Cleves, however, and Katharine's unwillingness to be the cause of a divorce stands in the way of her accepting queenship. Meanwhile, Lord Privy Seal Thomas Cromwell and his men conspire to use Katharine as a pawn for their own political ends. (Summary by Scarbo) The Fifth Queen Privy Seal

The Parade's End tetralogy privileges not the conflict of World War I itself, but the impact the war had on its participants and upon society writ large. It is often referred to as one of the greatest 20th century novels, and one of the best depictions of war in literature.

No More Parades is the second of four in Ford Madox Ford's Parade's End tetralogy, a work that Ford hoped would contribute to the obviating of all future wars. The novel follows Christopher Tietjens, a wealthy British landowner and the last British Tory; his unfaithful wife, Sylvia; and his mistress, Valentine Wannop. Highlighting the tension between traditional values and the new reality of a world marred by war, the novel details Tietjens' turmoils in both his personal life and on the warfront—and what follows when those struggles become one and the same.

Two couples, two marriages; both seemingly perfect, both falling apart. Beneath the surface gentility of the American John Dowell with his wife Florence and the landed grace of Edward and Leonora lie fictions and deceit. There are secret desires, hidden power-games, suicides and madness. Everyone is hiding something; even the narrator can’t be trusted. Brilliantly inventive, tragic and ironic, The Good Soldier is one of the great novels of the 20th century.

Last Post is the fourth and final installment of Ford Madox Ford's Parade's End tetralogy, a work that Ford hoped would contribute to the obviating of all future wars. The story follows Christopher Tietjens, a wealthy British landowner and the last British Tory; his wife, Sylvia; and his mistress, Valentine Wannop.

Set in the turbulent era just before and during the Great War, Some Do Not... delves into the dark depths of social cruelty within the English upper class. This gripping tale contrasts genuine honor with shameless duplicity, thrusting its central characters into extreme psychological turmoil that echoes the unspeakable physical horrors of the battlefield. The narrative follows the complex lives of Christopher Tietjens, a brilliant yet impossibly principled man; his frosty wife Sylvia; and Valentine Wannop, a passionate and educated young woman who is Christophers equal in both intellect and ...

In the final installment of Ford Madox Fords Parades End tetralogy, Last Post invites readers into a poignant and elegiac narrative. Set against the backdrop of rural England years after the Great War, we find Christopher Tietjens and his partner Valentine Wannop navigating the complexities of their lives as they await the arrival of a child. Meanwhile, Christophers older brother lies incapacitated, and the specter of his fiery wife Sylvia looms, threatening to disrupt their fragile peace. Fords storytelling demands engagement and patience as it weaves between different times and perspectives,...