Other editions of book The Good Soldier

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 twentieth century.

Events in The Good Soldier unfold just before World War I and chronicle 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 opens with the famous line, “This is the saddest story I have ever heard.” The narrator explains that for nine years he, his wife Florence and their friends Ashburnham and his wife Leonora had an ostensibly normal friendship while Edward and Florence sought treatment for their heart ailments at a spa in Nauheim, Germany. As it turns out, nothing in the relationships or in the characters is as it first seems.In The Good Soldier, one of the biggest selling books in history, Ford Madox Ford paved the way for over a century of thriller writers and film-makers who would go on to use the idea of the unreliable narrator to create mystery and suspense. The Good Soldier is a masterpiece of early twentieth-century fiction.

The Good Soldier: A Tale of Passion is a 1915 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 view of literary impressionism.

[This is the MP3CD audiobook format.] The Good Soldier is a story about the complex social and sexual relationships between two couples--one English, one American--and the growing awareness of American narrator John Dowell of the intrigues and passions behind their orderly Edwardian facade. It is Dowell's attitude--his puzzlement, uncertainty, and the seemingly haphazard manner of his narration--that makes the book so powerful and mysterious. In Ford's brilliantly woven tale, nothing is quite what it seems. Despite its catalog of death, insanity, and despair, this novel has many comic moments and has inspired the work of several distinguished writers, including Graham Greene. Originally published in 1915, The Good Soldier is considered by many to be Ford Madox Ford's masterpiece.

Here, for the first time as an unabridged audiobook, this enigmatic modern classic details the adulterous entanglements of two couples on seemingly normal, friendly terms. The truth of these liaisons emerges, retrospectively and in fragments, from the viewpoint of the innocent and unsuspecting John Dowell. Dowells perpetual failure to grasp and understand the nature of the infidelities of the people around him makes this a compelling and intriguing first-person narrative. The gap between one persons interpretation of events and the reality is deftly illustrated in what has been critically acclaimed as a near perfect novel and one of the greatest English classics of the twentieth century. Kerry Shales reading is superb, evoking all the suspense and the subtleties of this fine novel.

In The Good Soldier, Ford Madox Ford paved the way for over a century of thriller writers and film-makers who would go on to use the idea of the unreliable narrator to create mystery and suspense. Events in the story unfold just before World War I and chronicle 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 opens with the famous line, "This is the saddest story I have ever heard." The Good Soldier is a masterpiece of early twentieth-century fiction.

The Good Soldier: A Tale of Passion is a 1915 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 view of literary impressionism. Ford employs the device of the unreliable narrator, to great effect as the main character gradually reveals a version of events that is quite different from what the introduction leads you to believe. The novel was loosely based on two incidents of adultery and on Ford's messy personal life.

2020 Reprint of the 1915 Edition. Ford’s 1915 novel is set just before World War I and chronicles the tragedy of Edward Ashburnham, the soldier to whom the title refers, and his seemingly perfect marriage plus that of his 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 view of literary impressionism. Ford employs the device of the unreliable narrator to great effect as the main character gradually reveals a version of events that is quite different from what the introduction leads the reader to believe. The novel was loosely based on two incidents of adultery and on Ford's messy personal life. Using pre-First World War Europe as its stage, The Good Soldier is the story of Edward Ashburnham, his wife Leonora, and their friends, John and Florence Dowell. The eponymous Good Soldier, Edward embodies upper-class English values but behind closed doors carries on a long-running affair with Florence. When Florence's husband, John, discovers the affair, he sets in motion a series of events both tragic and unavoidable.

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