Publisher's Synopsis
Ford Madox Ford (born Ford Hermann Hueffer ( 17 December 1873 - 26 June 1939) was an English novelist, poet, critic and editor whose journals, The English Review and The Transatlantic Review, were instrumental in the development of early 20th-century English literature. Ford was born in Wimbledon[5] to Catherine Madox Brown and Francis Hueffer, the eldest of three; his brother was Oliver Madox Hueffer. Ford's father, who became music critic for The Times, was German and his mother English. His paternal grandfather Johann Hermann Huffer was first to publish Westphalian poet and author Annette von Droste-Hulshoff. Ford used the name of Ford Madox Hueffer, but in 1919 he changed it to Ford Madox Ford (allegedly after World War I because "Hueffer" sounded too Germanic in honour of his grandfather, the Pre-Raphaelite painter Ford Madox Brown, whose biography he had written. In 1889, after the death of his father, Ford and Oliver went to live with their grandfather in London. Ford graduated from the University College School in London, but never attended university.In 1894, Ford eloped with his school girlfriend Elsie Martindale. The couple were married in Gloucester and moved to Bonnington. In 1901, the couple moved to Winchelsea.The couple had two daughters, Christina (born 1897) and Katharine (born 1900).Ford's neighbors in Winchelsea included the authors Henry James and H.G. Wells.In 1904, Ford suffered an agoraphobic breakdown due to financial and marital problems. He went to Germany to spend time with family there and undergo cure treatments.Between 1918 and 1927 he lived with Stella Bowen, an Australian artist twenty years his junior. In 1920, Ford and Bowen had a daughter, Julia Madox Ford.In the summer of 1927, the New York Times reported that Maddox had converted a mill building in Avignon. The article implied that Ford was reunited with his wife at this point.Ford spent the last years of his life teaching at Olivet College in Olivet, Michigan. Ford died in Deauville, France, at the age of 65.... Ford Madox Brown (16 April 1821 - 6 October 1893) was an English painter of moral and historical subjects, notable for his distinctively graphic and often Hogarthian version of the Pre-Raphaelite style. Arguably, his most notable painting was Work (1852-1865). Brown spent the latter years of his life painting the Manchester Murals, depicting Mancunian history, for Manchester Town Hall."
