Parade's End
(eBook)

English novelist and poet, Ford Madox Ford, is probably best remembered today for his 1915 novel "The Good Soldier". Often cited as his next best work is the tetralogy of novels published between 1924 and 1928 known collectively as "Parade's End". A supremely modernist work set against the backdrop of World War One, the story is less concerned with the conflict of the war and more concerned with the tumultuous relationship between Christopher Tietjens, a brilliant wealthy government statistician, and his promiscuous socialite wife Sylvia. As these two central figures go their separate ways over the course of the war the reader experiences not only the tremendous impact of the war, but also of the concurrent social and economic upheaval that dominated the first part of the 20th century. Filtered through the psychological consciousness of Tietjens, Ford gives the reader an incredibly modernist juxtaposition of character and conflict. In the years since its first publication fans and critics alike have come to regard "Parade's End" as one of the greatest fictional treatments of World War One. This edition includes a biographical afterword.