Call Number:

C0158

Repository:

Princeton University Library: Manuscripts Division

Extent:

• 1 box
• 0.25 linear feet

Language:

English

Preferred Citation:

Identification of specific item; Date (if known); Ford Madox Ford Collection; Box and Folder Number; Special Collections, Princeton University Library.

Date:

1906-1939 (inclusive)

Creator:

Princeton University. Library. Special Collections and Ford, Ford Madox (1873-1939)

Form:

Correspondence -- 20th century and Poems. -- 20th century

Abstract:

Ford Madox Ford was a noted British author, poet, and editor. This collection consists of selected manuscripts and correspondence of Ford.

Ford Madox Ford was a noted British author, poet, and editor. Born Ford Madox Hueffer in Merton, Surrey, England, in 1873, Ford was educated at the University College School and wrote his first book, a children's fairy tale called The Brown Owl, when he was seventeen. He traveled widely throughout Germany and France and was strongly influenced by writers he met along the way. His first major work of fiction was The Fifth Queen Trilogy, based on the life of Catherine Howard, the fifth wife of Henry VIII. In 1908, Ford launched the English Review, a literary journal that attracted such notable contributors as H.G. Wells and Henry James. However, scandal in his personal and professional life forced him to sell the journal after only one year. In 1915, Ford published The Good Soldier, which is recognized both as his best novel and as one of the masterpieces of the twentieth century. He served as a lieutenant during World War I in France and decided to remain in Paris after the war, where he founded another literary journal, the Transatlantic Review, which published works by such talented writers as Ernest Hemingway, D.H. Lawrence, and James Joyce. He also published a four-part saga called Parade's End, which is often thought to be his most ambitious work. He spent the remainder of his life living in Paris, Provence, and the United States. Ford died in 1939.

The collection consists of select manuscripts and correspondence of Ford Madox Ford. The five manuscripts included are two collections of his poems, entitled New Poems (holograph manuscript, 34 pp.) and Poems in Two Keys (typed manuscript, 26 pp.); a preface to Robinson Crusoe (typed manuscript, 10 pp.); a poem, "Claire de Lune" (holograph manuscript, 3 pp.); and "Epilogue" (ca. 1917, both holograph and typed manuscript, 16 pp.), an unpublished work, and two holograph poems titled "To a Tudor Tune" and "A Night Piece". The rest of the collection consists of approximately 100 letters by and to Ford, along with related correspondence from publishers, authors, and relatives, including Alec Waugh, Eden Phillpotts, Violet Hueffer, and the literary agent James Brand Pinker.