The Ford Madox Societys

Welcome to the official website of the Ford Madox Ford Society

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The author of nearly 80 books and the founding editor of two groundbreaking periodicals, the English Review (1908-10) and the transatlantic review (1924), Ford is best known as the writer of The Good Soldier (1915), and the Parade’s End tetralogy (1924-8). He was also a well-regarded poet, memoirist, critic and cultural impressionist, including among his works a ‘personal remembrance’ of Joseph Conrad and a number of books about his ‘Pre-Raphaelite childhood’.

This site has been designed to provide information about the Society’s activities, about Ford’s life and work, and about the published work and scholarship available on Ford. 

If you are an admirer, an enthusiast, a reader, a scholar, or a student of anything Fordian, then this society would like to hear from you, and welcomes your participation in its activities.

Seamus O'Malley
Society Chair

Read Seamus O'Malley's full welcome here

Farewell from outgoing Chair, Sara Haslam

 On Friday 29 January, the Society Executive Committee met virtually for an event to mark the end of my term of office as Chair. I took over from our illustrious founding Chair, Max Saunders, in 2008. This was the year our 14th Newsletter was published, of which more below. It was also just after a highpoint in our conference history: Genova in September 2007, where we were joined by an amazing duo of plenary speakers A. S. Byatt and Colm Toíbín.

It is, therefore, more than time that I step down in favour of new leadership. As I do so I wanted to record what a privilege and pleasure it has been to serve in the role, to meet and talk with those members who have made it to conferences or other events over the years, and to do what I can to promote knowledge and appreciation of this great writer. There are exciting times ahead, I know, and more to follow on those. Read More...


From the Last Post blog

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A New Forest Typo: The Origins of Branshaw Teleragh
By Andrew Gustar
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In the early 1800s, a message could be sent between Plymouth and London in a matter of minutes. The Admiralty Shutter Telegraph, devised by Lord George Murray during the Napoleonic Wars, consisted of a series of hilltop signalling stations, each manned by a naval officer and two ratings, who sent signals by opening and closing combinations of six shutters in a vertical frame, and monitored signals from neighbouring stations through powerful telescopes. Similar communication lines were in place between the Admiralty and Portsmouth, Deal, Sheerness and Great Yarmouth.

One such telegraph station was in the New Forest, Read More...


News from the Lamb family archives: Elsie speaks
By Sara Haslam

August 1893: The Questions at the Well by Fenil Haig [the first of many pseudonyms Ford used] was published by Digby, Long & Co., dedicated to Miss Elsie Martindale.

Aside from the number of Elsie Martindale’s typed and handwritten story manuscripts, and the books of Ford’s that remained together in her possession, the most striking thing to this Ford scholar invited to explore the papers held by her descendants in Dublin were her diaries. Read More...

Ford on Social Media

Scholarly Resources

​Critical writing on Ford 

Download sample chapters from International Ford Madox Ford Studies

FMF Society News​

Illustrated essay on Biala!​
Carine Chicherau’s fascinating essay on the painter Janice Biala, Ford’s partner for the last decade of his life, is now available in both French and English (with a translation by Noémie Jennifer Bonnet).
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Original text in French:
https://diacritik.com/2022/12/15/peintresses-en-france-15-janice-biala-1903-2000-la-peinture-pour-patrie/
English translation available here (includes a link to the French text):
 
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Last Post
Ford Society members: the latest issue of Last Post will be coming to a letterbox near you very soon. Populism, musical settings, California oranges, reviews, columns – and cricket.

If you don't currently subscribe but would like to, information on how to do so is elsewhere on this website. See: 'About Us'

A major project, the Collected Letters of Ford Madox Ford in 6 volumes! 
​The Ford Society is delighted to announce a new project to address this significant gap in twentieth-century literary scholarship. ​Ford was a superb letter-writer, and yet the vast majority of his c.3,000 known letters remains unavailable in published versions. Its General Editors are Sara Haslam and Max Saunders, and Oxford University Press will be publishing the volumes.
​Read more...

​Now available!
Homo Duplex: Ford Madox Ford’s Experience and Aesthetics of Alterity, edited and with an introduction by Isabelle Brasme (Montpellier: Presses universitaires de la Méditerranée, 2020. ISBN 978-2-36781-343-1)

Ten essays ranging widely over Ford’s life, writing, literary—and personal— networks: this title will be reviewed in Last Post 6.

Recording Available of Jason Andrew’s online talk
 There’s a recording of the recent online event, ‘Biala (1903-2000): The Rash Acts of Rescue and Escape’, a fascinating talk by Jason Andrew, curator of the Biala Estate, with Biala’s letters splendidly voiced by Julia Gleich. The link is: https://youtu.be/W8x21VbWqvc. 
 
The talk was given under the auspices of the Fritz Ascher Society for Persecuted, Ostracized and Banned Art, Inc., in New York. Our thanks to Executive Director Rachel Stern and the Fritz Ascher Society

In Media​

Christina's Fairy Book
The TLS reports (20 May 2022) that the latest catalogue from Jonkers Rare Books lists Christina's Fairy Book (1906) at a price of £9,500.
The catalogue entry states that: 'No copies have been recorded at auction and we are aware of only one other copy being offered for sale in living memory.' The NB columnist adds that Ford 'wrote it for his first child. File next to his other contributions to the genre: the author of The Good Soldier was also the author of The Brown Owl, The Feather and The Queen Who Flew.'

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New audiobook: Parade's End
A recent title from The Audio Book Producers is Ford’s Parade's End (35 hours 12 minutes) read by acclaimed actor Bill Nighy, who is also an honorary member of the Ford Society.
Available through the usual outlets:
http://www.theaudiobookproducers.co.uk/
 

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