Other editions of book The Good Soldier

This edition includes 10 illustrations. With his novel series Parade’s End recently adapted into a critically acclaimed miniseries, Ford Madox Ford’s The Good Soldier, considered his finest novel, tells an equally passionate and tragic tale of adultery, mental illness and suicide in the fashionable sites of Europe’s spas, among a pair of sophisticated couples involved in relationships whose gloss is starting to fade. Ford’s dark subject matter and frank depiction of situations normally considered too taboo for discussion in the polite society of the pre-World War I era may have been shocking, but they were an honest reflection of the author’s own turbulent life.

Leonora and Edward Ashburnham were "good people" from England, as John Dowell, the narrator of this tale, explains: and Dowell and his wife, Florence — leisured Americans of solid stock — were, like their English friends, a "model couple."For a dozen years, the foursome cultivated and maintained a friendship reinforced with yearly meetings at a fashionable German health resort, which Dowell visited with his "ailing" wife and the Asburnhams traveled to because of Edward's "heart problems." Their marriages seemed exemplary studies of permanence, stability, and tranquility. That is, until the day Dowell learned that for the previous nine years his wife had been the mistress of his friend Captain Ashburnham, the apparently honorable "good soldier."A provocative study of deception and betrayal and of convention and desire, The Good Soldier was also formally innovative. Along with Ford's Parade's End tetralogy, this powerful novel — first published in 1915 — has earned him a reputation as one of the major writers of the 20th century.

Taking place just before World War I, English novelist Ford Madox Ford’s 1915 publication "The Good Soldier" recounts the story of Edward Ashburnham and his seemingly idyllic life with his wife and another couple who are their friends. A series of flashbacks that are not presented in chronological order serve as the structure of the novel and serve, too, as an early example of literary impressionism. The narrator is considered unreliable as his telling of the events differs from what is suggested in the introduction. "The Good Soldier" is a novel about the differences between appearance and reality—and about human willingness to see events in a light that best suits the viewer, regardless of how accurate that vision may be.Incidents of adultery in Ford’s life are thought to have inspired the novel. The book was originally titled "The Saddest Story" but as World War I was underway by the time of its release, the publishers requested that Ford change the title. The text is highly respected on both sides of the Atlantic with Modern Library listing it as one of the best English language novels of the twentieth century and the BBC naming it number thirteen on its list of the one hundred greatest British novels.(Source: supersummary.com)

* Beautifully illustrated with atmospheric paintings by renowned artists, The Good Soldier is the fascinating tale of an apparently perfect marriage which is gradually revealed to be anything but that. Ford uses flashbacks to narrate the story and is credited with pioneering what became known as literary impressionism. * Just as accessible and enjoyable for today's readers as it would have been when first published over a century ago, the novel is one of the great works of English literature and continues to be widely read throughout the world.* This meticulous edition from Heritage Illustrated Publishing is a faithful reproduction of the original text and is enhanced with images of classic works of art carefully selected by our team of professional editors.

The Good Soldier is a novel by English novelist Ford Madox Ford. It is set just before World War I and chronicles the tragedy of Edward Ashburnham, the soldier to whom the title refers, and his own seemingly perfect marriage and that of two American friends. The novel is told using a series of flashbacks in non-chronological order, a literary technique that formed part of Ford's pioneering use of literary impressionism. In 1998, the Modern Library ranked The Good Soldier 30th on its list of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century.

Saddest Story Ever Told“I know nothing - nothing in the world - of the hearts of men. I only know that I am alone - horribly alone.” - Ford Madox Ford, The Good SoldierOriginally titled as The Saddest Story, The Good Soldier by Ford Madox Ford tells the story of two couples seen by one of the four ‘halves’. The story is tragic criticizing the early 20th-century American and English hypocritical aristocracy. All four are incapable of loving one another and end up prisoners to their unbound lust and greed. Xist Publishing is a digital-first publisher. Xist Publishing creates books for the touchscreen generation and is dedicated to helping everyone develop a lifetime love of reading, no matter what form it takes Get your next Xist Classic title for Kindle here: http://amzn.to/1A7cKKl Find all our our books for Kindle here: http://amzn.to/1PooxLl Sign up for the Xist Publishing Newsletter here. Find more great titles on our website.

* Unlike other public domain versions of The Good Soldier available on Amazon, this edition contains the author's dedicatory letter to his wife. * Currently, readers wanting this dedicatory letter cannot obtain it in public domain versions of the book* The text has been reformatted to to make more accessible in electronic form: other public domain versions on Amazon are simple copies of the paperback version.The Good Soldier has been ranked as one of the Modern Library‘s 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century. An excerpt of The Good Soldier was originally published in the June 20th 1914 edition of Wyndham Lewis‘s Blast magazine (‘Review of the Great English Vortex’), where it was called ‘The Saddest Story.’ This edition contains a reformatted version of Ford’s original text for easier reading in electronic form. It also contains his dedicatory letter to his wife, Stella, where Ford describes his ambitions for his novel (‘to do for the English novel what in Fort comme la Mort, Maupassant had done for the French’), and his admission that his book was based on real events (‘the story is a true story and because I had it from Edward Ashburnham himself [I] could not write it till all the others were dead.’). The Good Soldier is, as its subtitle suggests, a tale of passion. It is also a tale of complicated, haphazard, and misunderstood relationships. In it the narrator, John Dowell, describes the history of the friendships that began in 1904 when he and his wife Florence met Edward and Leonora Ashburnham. Over the course of the novel Dowell begins to understand the intrigues lying behind the orderly Edwardian facade the couples had presented to the world.

The Good Soldier is a masterpiece of twentieth-century fiction, an inspiration for many later, distinguished writers, including Graham Greene. Set before the First World War, it tells the tale of two wealthy and sophisticated couples, one English, one American, as they travel, socialise, and take the waters in the spa towns of Europe. They are 'playing the game', in style. That game has begun to unravel, however, and with compelling attention to the comic, as well as the tragic, results the American narrator reveals his growing awareness of the sexual intrigues and emotional betrayals that lie behind its facade.

For nine years, John Dowell and his wife have spent the summer season at a German spa town in the company of the respectable Ashburnhams. Behind the placid exterior of their lives lie the destructive passions of men and women. When Dowell's world breaks apart, he tells his story as intimately as to a silent listener across the fireplace of a country cottage. 'Who in this world knows anything of any other heart -- or of his own?'.