No Enemy
A Tale of Reconstruction
Published on 28. June 2002
Book
Paperback/Softback
220 pages
978-1-85754-565-4 (ISBN)
Description
'No Enemy is Ford Madox Ford's little-known First World War novel, musing and reflective, published for the first time in Britain by Carcanet and ably edited by Paul Skinner. Congratulations to them both.' Alan Judd, Sunday Telegraph, Sunday 30th June 2002 No Enemy is one of Ford Madox Ford's most fascinating books and an act of witness to the First World War. Ford left the army in 1919 to settle in rural Sussex with the young Australian painter, Sheila Bowen. Suffering from shell-shock and erratic memory, he struggled to set down his experiences of the previous four years. Ford's protagonist is the poet Gringoire, who has survived the war and represents aspects of the writer. With his fictional frame in place, Ford created the distance necessary to confront, as Paul Skinner writes, the pains of 'having lost friends, of being terrified, afraid of going mad, afraid of dying'. No Enemy is often funny, but also profoundly moving, because Ford so clearly recovered his artistic strength in and through the writing of it.
In his introduction, Paul Skinner explores the world in which No Enemy was written, and considers how, by reinventing himself, Ford also reivented the strengths of his own writing.
In his introduction, Paul Skinner explores the world in which No Enemy was written, and considers how, by reinventing himself, Ford also reivented the strengths of his own writing.
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
Manchester
United Kingdom
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Unsewn / adhesive bound
Illustrations
Illustrations
Dimensions
Height: 220 mm
Width: 135 mm
Thickness: 14 mm
Weight
236 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-85754-565-4 (9781857545654)
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Schweitzer Classification
Persons
FORD MADOX FORD (1873-1939), 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 trilogy are acknowledged masterpieces. The Rash Act has been hailed as a major addition to the Ford canon. Of his novels Carcanet publish The Good Soldier, Parade's End, The Rash Act and Ladies Whose Bright Eyes. Carcanet also publish The English Novel, The Ford Madox Ford Reader, A History of Our Own Time and Selected Poems, War Prose, Return to Yesterday and other titles. Some of these have been released as part of The Millennium Ford that will bring all his major work back into circulation. Ford Hermann Hueffer (he adopted the name Ford Madox Ford in 1919) was 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'd written a children's story, in 1892 his first novel was released. Following the death of Ford Madox Brown, he wrote his grandfather's biography. He was an experienced writer when he met Joseph Conrad and they began a literary relationship which proved highly fruitful for the development of both writer's conception of the novelist's task. They collaborated on The Inheritors(1901) and other books. Ford continued to write prolifically on his own account in a variety of forms: art criticism, poetry, essays and novels. He wrote the book The Good Soldier which was published in 1915, the same year he took a commission in the army. His experience furnished him with material for Parade's End. His critical study The English Novel was published in 1929. 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.