The Good Soldier

Born in Kent, England in 1873, Ford Madox Ford began publishing fairy tales in the 1890s until he met Joseph Conrad in 1898. Together they collaborated on several books, including The Inheritors and Romance. Highly influenced by Conrad's art and friendship, Ford began publishing more serious fiction, producing in 1915 what most readers consider to be his masterpiece, The Good Soldier. Other major works such as Parade's End and Some Do Not appeared in later years, but The Good Soldier has remained a favorite.

"This is the saddest story," the narrator notes of his friend Edward Ashburnham's life. A superb soldier and the perfect English gentleman, Ashburnham has one fatal flaw with regard to affairs of love. Ford weaves a brilliant tale in which nothing is quite what it seems, including the narrator's telling of the tale.