Ford Madox Ford: A Dual Life, Volume 1: The World before the War

321 Pages·1996·37.149 MB·English

by  Max Saunders

FORD MADOX FORD
A DUAL LIFE
VOLUME I
THE WORLD BEFORE THE WAR
You have a period of muddle, a few of the brightest lads
have a vague idea that something is a bit wrong, and no one
quite knows the answer. As a matter of fact Madox Ford
knew the answer but no one believed him . . .
(Ezra Pound, 'Harold Monro', Polite Essays)
He knew how to invent the truth.
(Walter Lowenfels, 'The End was Ugly')
Max Saunders
Oxford New York
OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
1996
Oxford University Press, Walton Street, Oxford ox2 6oP
PREFACE
Oxford New York
Athens Auckland Bangkok Bombay
Calcutta Cape Town Dar es Salaam Delhi
Florence Hong Kong Istanbul Karachi
I desire a little to be remembered as a living man.
Kuala Lumpur Madras Madrid Melbourne
Mexico City Nairobi Paris Singapore (Ford, 'Preface' to On Heaven)
Taipei Tokyo Toronto
and associated companies in
Ford Madox Ford wrote some of the best English prose of the twentieth century,
Berlin Ibadan
mastering and metamorphosing all its major forms: the novel, the memoir, literary
Oxford is a trade mark of Oxford University Press criticism, travel writing, even historical and cultural discourse. He was also an
ionovative and influential poet, as well as the century's greatest literary editor. His
© Max Saunders 19g6
energies of creativity and encouragement changed the course of English and
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, American literature. He sustained two of the most constructive literary debates of
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means. the era. Joseph Conrad collaborated with him intermittently over ten years, and
Wirhir,.rhe UK, exceptions are allowed in respect of any fair dealing for the
Ford's memoir, Joseph Conrad, remains a milestone in the history of fiction-criti
purpose of research or private study, or criticism or review, as permitted
under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, u}88, or in the case of cism. The novel techniques they elaborated enabled Ford to write his pre-war
reprographic reproduction in accordance with the terms of the licences tnasterpiece, The Good Soldier, the most powerful portrayal of upper-middle-class
issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency. Enquiries concerning
Edwardian England, and a work of such brilliance that, according to Rebecca
reproduction outside these terms and in other countries should be
sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, West (who was only slightly exaggerating), it 'set the pattern for perhaps half the
at the address above novels which have been written since'.1 His admirers include novelists as diverse
as Sinclair Lewis, Sherwood Anderson, Jean Rhys, Graham Greene, V. S.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Data available ) g '1--3it03 Pritchett, John .Hawkes, Alison Lurie, Gore Vidal, William Gass, and Malcolm
Bradbury. Anthony Burgess called him 'the greatest British novelist of the
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
century'. Between 1908 and 1912 Ford transformed Ezra Pound's verse as he had
Saunders, Max.
earlier transformed his own prose, from medieval and Elizabethan pastiche to a
Ford Maddox Ford: a dual life I Max Saunders.
p. cm. modern idiom, charged by the energies of the vernacular. It was often Ford's
Includes bibliographical references and index. critical ideas-such as that 'poetry should be as well written as prose', and that
1. Ford, Ford Madox, 1873-193g--Biography
descriptions of objects could express emotional attitudes-for which Pound
2. Authors, English-20th century-Biography.
3. Editors- Great Britain-Biography. became the vigorous propagandist. As Donald Davie suspects, Ford's poetics
4. Critics-Great Britain-Biography. made an impression on the young T. S. Eliot. Pound called Ford 'the man who
I. Title. PR6011.053Z83 1996 82f .9I2-dc20 95-13548
did the work for English writing',... and- thought that through his (Pound's)
ISBN o-u;-21178'}-0
mediation Ford also influenced Yeats's later, more conversational style. Poets who
I 3 5 7 9 IO 8 6 4 2 have confessed to an admiration for Ford's writing include Allen Tate, W. H.
Typeset by Pure Tech India Ltd., Pondicherry "<~ .r.-~...-..>1, ......' Auden, Robert Lowell, Basil Bunting, and William Carlos Williams.2 _\
Printed in Great Britain -' ·;;!)·' The period of literary modernism is 'the Ford Era' as much as it is Pound's,
on acid-free paper by i3 ~ T. S. Eliot's, or Joyce's. Ford was at the centre of the three most innovative
Biddies Ltd. \iz\ groups of writers this century. His friends Henry James, Stephen Crane, and
~
Guildford and King's Lynn
Conrad formed what he imagined another friend, H. G. Wells, calling 'a ring of
't '~.;, ~
~~~ foreign conspirators plotting against British letters'. All these men lived near Rye,
where· Ford conspired with them about the plotting of novels. Later, in
Edwardian London he gathered the best writers together to contribute to his
English Review, in which he published D. H. Lawrence, Wyndham Lewis, and
Pound for the first time in London, next to James, Bennett, Wells, and Hardy.
He was associated with the avant-garde groups of Vorticists and lmagists, and he
PREFACE PREFACE vii
VI
wrote for the Suffragettes. After the Great War, in which he served, and w~ Lewis. When literary modernism was defined by examples of authoritarian,
shell-shocked, Ford moved to Paris. There he founded the transatlantic review, ale-orientated figures, Ford appeared too diffuse and diverse a writer to count
Class: bringing together the work of Joyce, Gertrude Stein, Jean Rhys, and Ernesu : more than a marginal figure. His apparently relaxed verse looks dated besides
Hemingway. During this second burst of creative engagement, he wrote his Pound's similar experiments in derivation and imitation. The Good Soldier seemed
post-war masterpiece, the series of four novels now known collectively as Parade out of date when A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man appeared the following
End, increasingly recognized as the best English fiction about the war, even as 'th~ year; the first volume of Parade's End looks old-fashioned beside Ulysses, which
Bare•
greatest war novel ever written by an Englishman'.3 preceded it by two years. Yet now Ford's influence on other writers-Conrad,
These are his essential claims on our attention. Yet until the 1960s he suffered Pound, Lawrence--has become more visible, and his example has proved to be
a scandalous neglect, and most of his seventy-nine books remained out of prinl1 one younger writers could profit from, whereas the techniques of 'The Waste
There are personal reasons for this. He was a singular, compellingly unusual Land', Finnegans Wake, or the Cantos could be mimicked but scarcely developed.
person. He infuriated and exasperated as many of those who knew him as he ford did not go to university, and his virtues are not academic ones. He became
inspired with fierce admiration and loyalty. His writing, too, provokes comparablfi a casualty of the academic guardianship of literature: his works are too readable
mixed responses. Many of the writers he knew felt compelled to write about this to need the industries of explicators and annotators; a man of extraordinary critical
unassimilable personality, to name and describe him in bizarre ways (which his sensibility and penetration, his reminiscences and criticisms are embarrassing to
own writing often anticipated)-as being like a 'friendly walrus', Falstaff, an those whose first criterion is scholarly accuracy. But it is mainly by scholars and
'overgrown duckling', an 'animated adenoid', 'Humpty-Dumpty'. He figures not students that he has recently been read. It has taken more than fifty years for his
just in literary memoirs, but as Fordian characters in novels by Conrad, Mali qualities to come into focus. The difficulty of 'placing' him has led to even his
Sinclair, Richard Aldington, Hemingway, Rhys, Wells, and many others-pe best work being placed outside most canons. As modernism has been reinvesti
haps even Henry James. His private life was at times messy, and messily public. gated, his differences from the 'canonical' authors have become reasons for
He was an unforgettable raconteur, incapable of telling a story without improvin reading him, and comparil'lg, rather than ignoring him. Indeed, his emphases on
it. His freedom with fact made enemies of friends he wrote about, and earned him fiction, on memory, and on sexuality are helping to redefine modernism.
a reputation as a liar. This turned into a self-fulfilling travesty, causing many of The work of Ford criticism and biography was done first by David Harvey,
his true claims to be disbelieved, even when opposed by witnesses no more whose pioneering bibliography charted the magnitude of Ford's creativity; and by
reliable, or equally adept at fabulation-Conrad and his wife, Violet Hunt, Wells, Arthur Mizener, who began the exacting task of establishing what facts and dates
Rhys, or Hemingway. The accusation of lying has bedevilled Ford's defenders of Ford's life can be known with any certainty, and of offering critical introduc
too, who often tangle themselves in tortuous arguments claiming that all fictions tions to many of the little-known novels. Before their books, Ford's biography
are lies, so Ford's lies are simply fictions. His has been a rare case of a biographical was riddled with ignorance. Anyone who has studied the primary sources will
smoke-screen obscuring the nature of a creative achievement. It is only now, know how much detective work done by these scholars unobtrusively supports
half-a-century after his death, when most of the personal animosities have burned each page of this book. However, the discovery of new material, and three decades
themselves out, that it becomes possible to gauge and judge: to see, for example, of scholarship and interpretation have done much to modify their versions of Ford
that his outrageousness has more to do with humorous role-playing than vanity and his relations with others. In particular, Richard M. Ludwig's edition of Ford's
or vice; to see the full range of his playful roles, and to see how his self letters has been supplemented by Sondra Stang, who published sixty new letters
dramatization in life is reciprocal with his explorations of role-playing in prose, in her Reader, and, with Karen Cochran, produced an annotated edition of Ford's
partaking of the same virtues of wry self-awareness. Ford now appears as one of correspondence with Stella Bowen. The fine criticism of Samuel Hynes, Sondra
the most fascinating, complex, and entertaining personalities of his age.4 Stang, and Ann Snitow has helped to deepen our understanding of his art. Other
Besides personal idiosyncrasies and accidents, there are literary reasons for his studies that have most significantly broadened the biography are: Robert Green's
uncertain status. He lacked the prudence of James and Eliot; the self-righteous Ford Madox Ford: Prose and Politics, which detailed the social and political context
ness of Pound; or Joyce's conviction of his own genius. He did not calculate his which the predominantly formalist studies of the 1960s tended to filter out;
literary career; need drove him to write pot-boilers. Though he never wrote a Pound/ Ford, edited by Brita Lindberg-Seyerstcd, which demonstrated the cen
lifeless sentence, much of his work is uneven, and he is only occasionally great. trality of their 'literary friendship' to the history of early modernism; The Return
He is a transitional figure----a central transforming force of early English modern of the Good Soldier: Ford Madox Ford and Violet Hunt's I9I7 Diary, edited by
ism. His technical virtuosity puts his work at odds with representative Edwardian Robert and Marie Secor; the magnificent Collected Letters ofJ oseph Conrad, still
performances, yet his experiments in sentiment, romance, reminiscence, and the being edited by Frederick Karl and Laurence Davies, which is clearing a
historical novel look slightly dated beside the ferocious impersonality of Eliot or wilderness of error in the dating and sequence of the correspondence; and
PREFACE
viii h F' (on of Ford Madox Ford. Moser's discovery
Thomas Moser's The Life in t e 'dzcdt fthe most significant new documents,
, d' has prov1 e one o k d
of Olive Garnett s iary . I H' ycho-biography also bro e groun ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS.
h. · · extensive y. ts ps · h'
which I follow tm m usmg kd d relating his agoraphobia to is
. F d' ntal brea own, an h
in analysmg or s me p .rF rd Madox Ford gathered toget er
. S , ~ II ction The resence 01 o ' h .
aesthetics. tang c.o e ,A I Judd's novelistic biography gave a sympat. etic It would have been impossible to write this book without the generous co-oper
valuable new remm1scences. an dary sources led him to reduplicate ation of the person who knew Ford best in his last decade, Janice Biala. Her
. f F d· b t his dependence on secon h f
portrait o' or , Tu h se are the mam. d eve 1o pme nts·' there is also a plet . .o rab ' o patience and candour in answering letters and being interviewed have been
Mizener s errorhs.. h . e I des new m. 1r 0rmat1. 0n ab o ut Ford , particularly m .1 0- exemplary. I am particularly grateful for her permission to quote freely from
recent. worfk h 'w tc t mctes u Conrad L awrence, Rhys ' Caroline Gordon, Kathe. rine Ford's published and unpublished work, which has enabled me to let Ford's esprit
Agrnapnhe1 Peso rot ert-sa cso wn eall as- the pubh.s' h e d correspon dence of these and other .w riters, and expressiveness manifest itself in his own words; in his books and mauscripts,
but also in his marvellous letters, many previously unpublished.
notably Ezra Pound.s . . h b en discovered. Cornell University Many others offered help and encouragement. I should like to thank: Chris
Most importantly,. nt ewth awt nhtamdg sb eenav eo wnee d by Ford's daughters, Katharine topher Ricks for suggesting I should write Ford's biography; Ford's great
bought the mI'a nLus cnp s These collect1. 0ns m. e 1u d ed many pieces Harvey had no.t nephew, the Hon. Oliver Soskice, for letting me see his family memorabilia, and
Lamb and Ju Ia oewe. . . . unpublished novel among them; his for his enthusiasm for the project; Alan Judd, for his Fordian absence of rivalry
seen: a wealth of Ford's earhe~t wl ndt.mgst, aon important pieces on the First World
towards a fellow Ford biographer; Dido Davies, for years of sympathetic
. I 't' s· essays me u mg w . h d h
mus1ca comp.os1 wn ' ' . of The Good Soldier; many unpubhs e s ort conversation about (amongst other things) literary biography; Barry Johnson, for
War; his partial French translauol n ds and telegrams and ten poems, all sharing his impeccable knowledge of Olive Garnett and her circle; Wil Sanders,
. A h f almost sixty etters, car , '
biographers-appeare~,.i
stonEeIs. . b cha c Ceh oa tham-a lover un kn own to previous . I h for his formidable example as a critic and teacher, and for his conviction of why
to tza et e J dd F d's final partner, Janice Bia a, as very and how Ford matters; Robert Hampson, for reading the typescript and making
whedni he1r grandsseoen wsormotee toof A hleanr Ieu tter.s ~rra m Ford ' also unavailable tFo' eaIrI lie scrupulous suggestions; Carole Angier, for detailed help on Jean Rhys. Sondra
kin y et me . I b h f Violet Hunt's papers in 1990. ma y, j Stang was generous with her immense knowledge of Ford's works; I am very sorry
acqmre~ ~tc includin~
scholars. Cornell a ost Io unrecorded periodical pieces, she did not live to see how much my work owes to her. I am also very grateful
have discovered over thirty prev10us y lin short stories. ~
to Caradoc King, for being a skilful agent, and to Will Harris, for a summer's
Ford's first reminiscential essay and some.relve:_erfng a new synthesis of critic~ conscientious research assistance.
. d d' II the new matena, ow
This stu hy. iIs cussersc ha Our sense of F or d has been restricted by the stereotypl The British Academy generously awarded me two grants to visit Cornell. I am
and biograp tea resea . h . h been to bring out the comp e also grateful to the Master and Fellows of Selwyn College, Cambridge, for
'T ti man' Here t e aim as d 1h
~
orefl atthioen shioprsy bgeetwn eeen ht' s . t'd ea s of art ' politics ' sexuality, psychology, an t financial and moral support during the early stages of the project, and to the
reader. Department of English Language and Literature, King's College London, for
allowing me leave and research assistance to complete it, and for not doubting its
existence.
The following contributed information or welcome help and advice: Jane
Abraham, Hugh Anson-Cartwright, Doreen Batchelor, Claire Daunton, Oliver
Davies, Philip Davis, Mike Dooley, Herbert Eaton, Jennifer Fitzgerald, Dr Oliver
Flint, Richard Garnett, H. Joachim Gerke, James Gindin, Tom Goldwasser,
Robert Gomme, Joy Grant, Sue Gray, David Dow Harvey, Sara Haslam, Eric
Hornberger, Peter Howard of Serendipity Books, Dr Anton Wilhelm Huffer,
Peter Hutchinson, Lawrence Iles, Alexander R. James, George Jefferson, Frede
rick Karl, Sir Frank Kermode, John Lamb, Mark Samuels Lasner, Oive Lewis,
Walton Litz, Alison Lurie, Maynard Mack, Lady Mander, Neville Masterman,
Jeremy Maule, Ann Lee Michell, Arthur and Rosemary Mizener, Julian Nangle,
Teresa Newman, Lucy O'Conor, Ian Patterson, Adrian Poole, Eric Quayle, Sally
Sanderlin, Robert and Marie Secor, Paul Skinner, Richard Stang, Oliver Stonor,
Lady Stow Hill, Tony Tanner, Nancy Tennant, Michael Tilby, Nora Tomlinson,
x ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
XI
David Trotter, Bruce A. White, Caroline White, Mrs William A. P. White, Joe
I should like to thank; Caroline White for permission to quote from Olive
Wiesenfarth, Sir John Winnifrith, Joan Winterkorn.
Class1 Garnett's diary, and from Ann Lee Michell's annotated typescript selection from
The largest collection of Ford's manuscripts and letters is in the Olin Library,
it; Richard Garnett, for permission to quote from family papers and reproduce
Cornell University. I am grateful to two of its librarians, Donald D. Eddy and
photographs; and the Trustees of the Joseph Conrad Estate, for permission to
Mark Dimunation, for permission to read and quote from the material and to quote from Conrad's unpublished letters.
their friendly and professional staff for making my visits so enjoyable, particularly
Bare• Earlier versions of parts of this book have appeared in Agenda and the
James Tyler, Lucy B. Burgess, Janet Carruthers, and Lynne Farrington, for their
introduction to the Everyman's Library edition of The Good Soldier. I am grateful
apparently tireless efforts and courtesy; and also Denise R. Barbaret, Katie
to the editor and publisher respectively for permission to incorporate the revised
Bevington, Nick Halmi, and Lois Fischler. Princeton University Library and the version here.
Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library of Yale University hold the other
For permission to quote I should also like to thank the following publishers:
major collections. I am grateful to the librarians of both for copying material for
Bartletts Press, for excerpts from Tea and Anarchy! and Olive CS Stepniak, ed.
me, and allowing me to quote from it.
Barry Johnson; John Calder (Publishers) Ltd., for excerpts from Wyndham
I am grateful to the following libraries and institutions for their help, and, in
Lewis's Blasting and Bombardiering; Cambridge University Press, for excerpts
most cases, for permission to quote from their holdings or reproduce illustrations:
from the Collected Letters ofJ oseph Conrad, ed. Frederick R. Karl and Laurence
BBC Written Archives Centre; Hulton Picture Library (BBC); University
Davies, and The Letters ofD . H. Lawrence, ed. James T. Boulton; Jonathan Cape
Library, University of Birmingham; Bodleian Library, Oxford; British Library;
Ltd., for excerpts from 'Daniel Chaucer', The New Humpty-Dumpty, Ford's The
British Library Newspaper Library, Colindale; British Library of Political and
Good Soldier, Ford and Hunt's Zeppelin Nights, and Arthur Mizener's The Saddest
Economic Science; Brotherton Collection, Leeds University Library; State
Story; Chapman & Hall Ltd., for excerpts from Ford's Ancient Lights; Chatto &
University of New York at Buffalo; Calderdale District Archives, Halifax;
Windus, for excerpts from David Garnett's The Golden Echo; Constable & Co.
University Library, Cambridge; Canterbury, The King's School; Case Western
Ltd., for excerpts from Douglas Goldring's South Lodge; Gerald Duckworth &
Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio; University of Chicago, Joseph Regenstein
Co. Ltd., for excerpts from Ford's Joseph Conrad; Faber & Faber (Publishers)
Library; Columbia University; Library of Congress; Constable & Co. Ltd.;
Ltd., for excerpts from Pound/ Ford: The Story of a Literary Friendship, ed. Brita
Dartmouth College Library; Delaware Art Museum; Dorset County Museum;
Lindberg-Seyersted; Victor Gollancz Ltd., for excerpts from Ford's Return to
East Sussex County Record Office, Lewes; University of Edinburgh Library;
Yesterday; William Heinemann Ltd., for excerpts from Ford's The Good Soldier;
Essex Record Office; General Registers Office; Giessen Stadtarchiv; Glas~o~ Princeton University Press, for excerpts from Letters of Ford Madox Ford, ed.
University Library; the Houghton Library, Harvard University; House of L~rds Richard M. Ludwig; Martin Secker & Warburg Ltd., for excerpts from Ford's
Record Office; Huntington; University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; ndiana
Henry James and Samuel Hynes's The Edwardian Turn of Mind.
University Library; Institute of Historical Research; Kenneth Spencer Research
Library, University of Kansas; King's College Library, Cambridge; Mairies de
Paris; Manchester City Art Gallery; Convent of the Holy Child, Mayfield, East
Sussex; Museum of Broadcasting, New York; NBC; University of Nevada, Reno;
Northwestern University Library; the Henry W. and Albert A. Berg Collection,
New York Public Library; Octopus Publishing Group Library; Olivet College;
Oxford University Press, New York; The English Centre of International
PEN; Van Pelt Library, University of Pennsylvania; Public Record Office;
University of Reading Library; Royal Commission on Historical Manuscripts;
Rutgers University Libraries; National Library of Scotland; Southend CentrJI
Library; University of Sussex. Library; Office of Population Censuses and
Surveys, General Register Office, St Catharine's House; Harry Ransom
Humanities Research Centre, University of Texas; Theatre Museum, London;
Tower Hamlets Health Authority; University Library, UCLA; The Jean an
Alexander Heard Library, Vanderbilt University; University of Victoria, l:lriti b
Columbia; Washington University, St Louis; Witt Library, Courtauld Institute of
Art.
CONTENTS
Class1
To Alfred and Diana Cohen List of Illustrations xv
Family Trees
XVlll
Bare•
~Introduction
r. Family
I7
2. Childhood 3I
3. 1889-1892
42
4. 189]: Art and Elegy
55
5. I894: Perpetrating Matrimony
72
6. I894-I898: The Life of the Country 86
7. Meeting Conrad IOI
8. I899-I900: Collaboration
II7
9. 190I: 'A Singular Mosaic'
I3 I
IMIJ11.'10
IO. I902-I903
Alt\111 3HJ. I48
I I. I904: London
I63
I2. I904: Germany
I73
I3. I905: London
I90
I4. I906: Politics, Marwood, The Fifth Queen
207
I5. I906-I907 2I8
I6. I908-I909: Violet Hunt and The English Review 238
I7. I909: The Wrecks of Friendships
253
I8. I909: Suicidal Passion: A Call ._276)
'~
I9. I9IO: Prison, Ladies Whose Bright Eyes, Germany
".305
20. I9II: 'Art is Very Bitter'
320
21. I9II: Giessen
338
22. I9 I I: Perpetrating Bigamy?
346
23. I9I2-I9I3: The Dark Forest
364
24. I9I3: Quiet Talking
39I
lf' 25. The Good Soldier: Desiring, Designing, Describing 402
26. I9I4-I9I5: Hostilities
46I
27. I9I5-19I6: Army
479
Abbreviations
495
Notes
500
Index
6I3
-
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Class
Between pages 204 and 205
ford Madox Brown. Ford used this photograph to face the first page of his first
Bare book of reminiscences, Ancient Lights, giving it the caption 'The Last Likeness of
JVladox Brown'
Photo: Faulkner
ford's mother, Mrs Catherine Hueffer (Cathy Madox Brown) painted by Ford
J\iladox Brown, and reproduced in her daughter Juliet Soskice's Chapters from
Childhood
Private collection. Photo: Courtauld Institute ofA rt
Ford's father, Francis Hueffer, painted by Cathy Madox Brown.
Private collection. Photo: Courtauld Institute ofA rt
Ford Madox Hueffer, aged 8. This picture, also known as 'The Dirty Boy', may
have been painted by Charles Faulkner, of the 'firm' Morris, Marshall, Faulkner
&Co.
111!1IHI .'10 Thomas Coldwasser
11\lfl 3H.L
Juliet Hueffer, aged 4, chalk by Ford Madox Brown
Private collection. Photo: Courtauld Institute ofA rt
Ford Madox Brown's painting of Ford, aged 3, as 'Tell's Son'. Ford, who owned
the painting at the time, reproduced it before the Dedication of Ancient Lights,
with the caption 'I seem to be looking at myself from outside'.
Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge (private collection). Photo: Courtauld Institute ofA rt
'The Wedding Ring'. Ford's wife Elsie Hueffer, nee Martindale, painted in 1895
by her mother-in-law Cathy Hueffer.
Mrs Mary Waugh. Photo: Barry Johnson
Mary Martindale, Ford's sister-in-law
Olin Library, Cornell University
Joseph Conrad in 1896, two years before meeting Ford
Olin Library, Cornell University
Pent Farm. Ford and Elsie Hueffer's home from 1896-8, when they handed it
over to the Conrads, who stayed until 1907. The scene of much of the
collaboration on Romance and The Inheritors, and where Conrad wrote Heart of
Darkness, Lord Jim and Nostromo.
The literary agent J. B. Pinker, around 1896
XVI LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS XVll
Arthur Marwood, about 1903, a year or two before he befriended Ford and then Ford with Violet Hunt, probably at her cottage at Selsey
Conrad Olin Library, Cornell University
Class1,
........ John Conrad Ford as an officer in the Welch Regiment, author of The Good Soldier
Olive Garnett in 1893. She liked this photograph, writing in her diary, 'It is I'. Mansell Collection. Photo: E. 0. Hoppe.
Mrs Caroline White ford's brother, Oliver Madox Hueffer
Edward Garnett Olin Library, Cornell University
C. F. G. Masterman
Neville Masterman
Lucy Masterman
Neville Masterman
Between pages 332 and 333
'The Bungalow', Winchelsea. Ford and Elsie Hueffer's home from 1901---<)
Charles Kinross
Ford, photographed by H. G. Wells's wife 'Jane' at Sandgate
Olin Library, Cornell University
rn:um ..i:o
Elsie Hueffer spinning. Olive Garnett called her 'a Penelope, as she fancied but
\J, 13HJ.
her Ulysses was never to return. She fought him, you know, to fight for him, &
the old simple life that could not come back.'
Olin Library, Cornell University
Christina and Katharine ('Babs') Hueffer, the daughters of Ford and Elsie, c.1908.
Lady Stow Hill
Ford, c.1904
Lady Stow Hill
Oliver Madox Hueffer, Ford's brother, c.i895
Lady Stow Hill
f'lF..llSlfl'
llNGll \l Juliet Soskice, Ford's sister
Lady Stow Hill
David Soskice, who married Juliet Hueffer in 1902
Lady Stow Hill
Violet Hunt, with whom Ford lived from 1909 until the war
Olin Library, Cornell University
South Lodge, Violet Hunt's and her mother's house on Campden Hill Road,
London
Jl.llUl.'10 Hunt's niece, Rosamond Fogg Elliot, 'the Beauty'
·n 3HJ.
Brigit Patmore, one of the habitues at South Lodge, and a friend of Ford and Ezra
Pound
Ford as the Edwardian man-about-town, 1915
Mansell Collection. Photo: E. 0. Hoppe
,._
I
=~ z~
~()." ~ ;-2~>;:r: :=~rrii =w;...... i"J=o="i ~.#o >) =.II>, -I~I>
~ 0 ~ !"!'!
r
FORD'S PATERNAL LINE Johann Hermann Huffer 1784-1855 (1) 1812 Amalia Hosius 178g-1825
I I I I
Sophie Bbcker ={1)1841 Eduard.::: (l) 1850 Maria Scheffer- Maria= 1843 Hyazinth Sophia Alfred= 1848 Bertha v. Wilhelm= 1857 Constanze Grabau Julia= 1851 Carl Wilde Lcdpold = 1851 Bertha Spina
1819-46 1813-99 Boichorst 1824--85 :i;814--84 Ophove:n 1816-19 1818--()9 Mallinckrodt 1821---i)5 1837-1912 1823-55 1821--89 1825-<)7 1828-1921
1805-75 1826-{i1 I
I I I
Amalie Julius Engelbert Julius Maria Amelie Amalie Franz Wilhelm Carl Amalia
1842-51 1843-1901 1845-r909 r850-r903 1853-r923 b.&d. 1859 r855-1938
Franziska Friedrich Hermann Anton Wilhelm Ferdinand Julia Detmar Georg Alfred Paula Hermann
l85o-80 r853-1925 1854-1936 1857-1954 r859-1906 1863--85 l865-r936 r84g-1931 1851-1922 1853-1930 1858-1927 1860-1934
Claudine? Hermann Leopold Claudine Wilhelm
b.&d.1852 1853-1943 1855-r93r 1857-58 1851}-1920
Johann Hermann Hoffer 1784-1855 = (2) 1827 Julia Kaufmann 1809-70
Hermann Hermann= 1878 Antonie Anna=1856 Carl Wilde Alexander Emma=1859 Julius Goesen Sophia Laura=1861 Hermann Carl Emil= l 86<j Elise Franz, later
1828-30 Joseph • Theissing 1831-1903 1821-8<) 1832-<)9 1834-1917 181~2 1835-.,0 1840-1910 Schmedding 1842-77 Rahm Francis Hueffer
1830-1905 1842-1928 I 1815-68 1839-1915 r845-89
(father of Ford
I I Madox Ford)
Hermann Alfred Martha Maria ('Mimi')
1861-.,8 b.&d.1863 b.&d.1865 l866-r934
Carl Hermann Bertha Leo Wilhelm Julia Cleniens August Max Julia Else Martha Albert
r858-r936 1865-1915 1861...fu 1864-1930 1865-1904 1866-1949 1868-1931 1869-89 1870--1902 l87Q-?I 1872-1963 1873-1924 1874-1962
• This was the uncle Hermann who was a professor in History at Bonn. This drawing is designed to show all Ford's paternal uncles, cousins, and aunts. It is
Ford's patern~l grandfather had 17 children by two wives. His youngest child, Franz Huffer, derived from 'Die Hoffer', in Wilhelm Schulte, Westfalische KOpft {Miinster: Verlag
Aschendorff, 1963),"which gives further information about the cousins' marriages and
born when he was 61, became the f~ther of Ford Hueffer, who changed his name to Ford descendants.
Madox Ford.
The year of marriage is given after the ' =' sign
FORD'S MATERNAL LINE AND DESCENDANTS
Ford Madox Brown =( 1) 1841 Elizabeth Bromley 1820--46
. . ~821-<)3 +/ = (2) 1853 Matilda 'Emma' Hill 1829-<;o
Dante Gabnel Rossetti Christina Rosseui
1828-82 1830--94
I
1829-1919 William Michael Rossetti= 1874 Lucy 1843-<)4 Catherine ('Cathy')=1872 Francis Hueffer 1845_89 Oliver Madox
1850-1927 (see Huffer Family Tree) ('Nolly') r855-?4
.-~~~-.~~~......-~~~L-~I
Olivia Frances Madox Arthur Madox Helen Maria Madox Mary Elizabeth
('Olive') 1875-196o 1877-1932 l87g-196<J Madox 1881-1947
laFtoerr dF Ho1re8dr7m 3M-a1na9nd3 o9Hx u eFfoferrd = 1894+ E +(li=z ?Eaibs9et1hth1e )r( 'V(E'Silotselieeltl' )a H')M uBanorttw i1ne8dn6a 2lre-81 919384-271 794-179 49 MOlaalditoverxe r ' HOFulriaevnfefzre ,r 1=+ ( (12)) 11188969?76?- 1MZ9ou3e8r i Peyl nHea rris Juliet C18a8th0e-1ri9n4e3 Emma= 1902 1D86a6v-i1d9 S41o skice
+Janice Tworkov, later 'Biala) b. 1903 r876-1931
Christina Madox Katharine Madox = 1927 Charles Lamb
later Sister Mary Matthew 1900-78 1893-1964 Susan Hunter= 1940 Frank, later Sir Frank, Oliver Basil Peter David
1897-1984 b. 1909 Home Secrecary, and 1908-64 19u_r--72
Baron Stow Hill 1902-?9
Esther Julia ('Julie') Madox = 1943 Roland Loewe
1920-87
John Peter Mary Eileen Christina
b. 1928 b. 1929 b. 1931 b. 1933 1933-42
Julian b. 1947 David William Oliver Cloudsley Hunter
b. 1943 b. r947
Notes: che year of marriage is given after the '=' sign
the sign '+' is used to indic.ate unmarried couples living together
-
INTRODUCTION
Class
In the realm of fiction we find the plurality of lives we need.
(Freud, 'Thoughts for the Times on War and Death')
Bare
Ford Madox Ford was born in June 1919, aged 45. The birth was a rebirth, as
the dual re-christening suggests. Ford Madox Hueffer- who had already partly
anglicized his name from Ford Hermann Hueffer by deed poll in July 1915,
although he had been writing as Ford Madox Hueffer since 19oo-finally changed
his name to Ford Madox Ford by another deed poll on 4 June 1919; and on 24
June; and on 28 June. The first two dates mark the beginning and end of the legal
process: the deed poll is dated 4 June, and it was 'Enrolled in the Central Office
of the Supreme Court of Judicature' on the 24th. But what about the 28th?
Why did he write to at least three friends giving that as the date of the
transformation? Why did he want to transform the chronology as well as the
dramatis persona?
Ford's biography is inseparable from such questions. Reviewing a Life and
1mm1..io Letters of Joseph Conrad he wrote: 'The Poet- and particularly the poor devil so
i\1Nrt 3HJ. harried as was Conrad- must have escape from the world, anodynes, and drugs
of which the lay public has neither need or knowledge. One of these is to Poetiser
un peu-to romance a little when he talks of himself. Then that romance becomes
part of himself and is the true truth.'' This is characteristic in the way it reflects
upon Ford's own self, without being any less true of the other (as Conrad's
biographers keep discovering). Most of his writing is obliquely, but inescapably,
autobiographical. Like his own criticism, it poses a quality of 'personality' as the
rrllnScendent origin of the works of literature, which is expressed by those works.
The writing always looks searchingly beyond itself, towards the personality of the
--art!St. Such 'personality' is a biographical quality, though it may not be capturable
IVERSITY
by the biographical quantities of names and dates, by the category of factual,
UNGHAM
archival 'truth' which Ford opposes to 'the true truth', the artist's romance of the
~f. He understood how he too would 'romance a little when he talks of himself';
and he understood the complementary truth that the romance became a part of
himself. For example, he was pleased to accept the- probably fictional-Ruthen
ian ancestors he said Conrad 'rooted out' for him. 'I prefer to think that one of
my great grandfathers came from Poland in the ranks of Poniatowski's legion',
said Ford: 'Certainly I should prefer to consider that what Slav blood I had was
Polish rather than Russian in origin [ ...] Poles seem more romantic than
Russians.,, Such preferences pose a crucial problem for Ford's biography. How
far should one point reprovingly at his inaccuracies, as Arthur Mizener relentless
ly did? Ford's wish for Ruthenian ancestry may not tell us anything factual about
his genealogy, but it does tell us much about his imagination: about his desire to
reinvent himself and history; and about his intellectual kinship with the Polish