Ford Madox Ford, one of the shaping spirits of modern literature, was a great editor, essayist, critic, advocate, and above all a great novelist. The Good Soldier and the Tietjens novels (which make up Parade's End) are acknowledged masterpieces. Born in Surrey in 1873, his father was an author and musicologist and his mother was the daughter of the Pre-Raphaelite painter Ford Madox Brown. He quickly took to writing: at seventeen he had written a children's story, in 1892 his first novel was released. The Good Soldier was published in 1915, the same year he took a commission in the army. His experience furnished him with material for Parade's End. He continued to publish novels regularly, as well as other works, notably an extended Collected Poems in 1936. He died in Deauville, France in 1939.

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