Ford Madox Ford's extraordinary novel of passion and betrayal, The Good Soldier, is edited with an introduction by David Bradshaw in Penguin Classics.
The Dowells, a wealthy American couple, have been close friends with the Ashburnhams for years. Edward Ashburnham, a first-rate soldier, seems to be the perfect English gentleman, and Leonora his perfect wife, but beneath the surface their marriage seethes with unhappiness and deception. Our only window on the strange tangle of events surrounding Edward is provided by John Dowell, the husband he deceives. Gradually Dowell unfolds a devastating story, in which everyone's honesty is in doubt. The Good Soldier is a masterpiece of narrative skill and emotional depth.
David Bradshaw's introduction discusses John Dowell as the classic unreliable narrator and as English literature's most fascinating enigma, and shows how Ford Madox Ford's unconventional narrative structure makes The Good Soldier a modernist masterwork.
(Merton, Reino Unido, 1873 - Deauville, Francia, 1939) fue un prolífico novelista, poeta, crítico y editor. Nació en el seno de una familia artística, siendo su padre, de nacionalidad alemana, el autor y crítico musical Francis Hueffer, y su abuelo materno el afamado pintor Ford Madox Brown. En 1908 fundó la revista The English Review, en la que publicó los primeros relatos de D. H. Lawrence y escritos de Thomas Hardy, Henry James y H. G. Wells; colaboró además con Joseph Conrad, con quien escribió Los herederos (1901), Romance (1905) y La naturaleza de un crimen (1909). De su producción cabe destacar las novelas El buen soldado (1915) y El final del desfile (1924 - 28).
