
Ford Madox Ford was an English novelist, poet, critic and editor whose journals The English Review and The Transatlantic Review were important in the development of early 20th-century English and American literature. Ford is now remembered for his novels The Good Soldier (1915), the Parade's End tetralogy (1924–1928) and The Fifth Queen trilogy (1906–1908). The Good Soldier is frequently included among the great literature of the 20th century, including the Modern Library 100 Best Novels, The Observer′s "100 Greatest Novels of All Time", and The Guardian′s "1000 novels everyone must read".
The Good Soldier opens with the famous line: “This is the saddest story I have ever heard.” John Dowell, half of one of the couples whose dissolving relationships form the subject of the novel, chronicles the tragedy of Edward Ashburnham, the soldier to whom the title refers. Dowell tells a winding tale of passion and deceit in a rambling, non-chronological fashion—a literary technique that