Fun Facts Friday: Ford Madox Ford

Ford Madox Ford (17 December, 1873 – 26 June, 1939) was an English author, poet, critic, and editor whose World War I horrific experiences influenced many of his novels. His novel, The Good Soldier, is often included in the best 100 novels of all time.

Books by Ford Madox Ford*

Fun Facts about Ford Madox Ford:

1. Joseph Leopold Ford Hermann Madox Hueffer was born in Wimbledon, London. His mother, Catherine Madox Brown, was an artist and model. His father, Francis Hueffer, was a music writer. The writer’s brother, Oliver Madox Hueffer, was an author and war correspondent and his sister, Juliet Catherine Emma Hueffer, was a translator and poet (mother of English politician Frank Soskice). There were other family members who were artists and writers.
2. Ford Madox Brown, the author’s grandfather was a Pre-Raphaelite painter. The biography of Ford Madox Brown was written by his namesake, Ford Madox Ford.
3. Elsie Martindale was Mr. Ford’s school girlfriend, the couple eloped in 1894 and moved to Winchelsea. Several famous authors lived in the neighborhood including Henry James, W.H. Hudson, Stephen Crane, Joseph Conrad, and H. G Wells.
4. After fifteen years, and two girls, the couple separated. Mrs. Ford refused to get a divorce, but Mr. Ford went to live with writer Isobel Violet Hunt. Together they published The English Review.
5. Hunt and Mr. Ford eventually separated; the author had several relationships with different women until the 1930s.
6. During World War I, Mr. Ford worked for the War Propaganda Bureau. After writing two propaganda books, Mr. Ford enlisted into the Welsh Regiment of the British Army and sent to France.
   He was 41 years old.
7. The English Review, a 1908 magazine founded by Ford Madox Ford published works by many contemporaries included Henry James, H. G Wells, Thomas hardy, and William Butler Yeats. The magazine published the debut works of Ezra Pound and D. H. Lawrence.
8. Ford’s 1915 poem Antwerp, was called by T. S. Eliot as “the only good poem I have met with on the subject of war”.
9. In Ernest Hemingway’s Parisian memory, A Moveable Feast, he describes a meeting with Ford Madox Ford at a café, in the early 1920s.
10. Throughout his career, the author championed literary experimentation and new literature.

Books by Ford Madox Ford*

Zohar — Man of la Book
*Ama­zon links point to an affil­i­ate account, the money is usually spent on books