The Good Soldier

Ford Madox Ford, 1915

Modernist novels

An American narrator tries to reconstruct the private realities behind his long friendship with an English couple.

Read the book Contents

Length: 19 chapters
Reading time: About 5 hr 16 min
Words: 75,288

About the book

John Dowell begins with the claim that his account is terribly sad, then struggles to define how well he knew the Ashburnhams. Years of close acquaintance appear compatible with profound ignorance. His attempt to explain the friendship immediately raises questions about the knowledge on which it rested.

The narrative proceeds through recollection rather than orderly report, allowing qualifications and new impressions to alter its shape. Dowell even wonders how best to tell it. The reader must attend both to the people he describes and to the habits of interpretation through which he presents them.

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Modernist novels

This edition

Text from Standard Ebooks, who proofread and typeset it and dedicate their edition to the public domain. Ford Madox Ford died more than 70 years ago, so the work is out of copyright in the UK.