The Good Soldier

Ford Madox Ford

The Good Soldier — At the height of belle époque Europe, an American couple—the narrator John Dowell and his wife Florence–and a British couple–Leonora and the titular “good soldier” Edward Ashburnham—meet and become firm friends. Travelling and socialising together, it’s a full nine years before the cracks start to show, but when they do the whole edifice starts tumbling to reveal the secrecy and lies concealed within. The Good Soldier is a classic example of the use of an unreliable narrator. With a charitable view, everything John Dowell retells is plausible, but it doesn’t take much critical thinking to reframe the story’s events as something entirely more sinister. The novel is now frequently ranked by critics as one of the great pieces of twentieth-century literature. Ford Madox Ford had already published many books when this novel appeared in 1915. He collaborated on fiction with Joseph Conrad, founded and edited The English Review in 1908, and later founded The Transatlantic Review in 1924, where he published Ernest Hemingway and worked with him as a fellow editor.

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