Ford Madox Ford and the Voice of Uncertainty

xiii, 242 pp. "...Ann Barr Snitow traces the development of Ford's unique voice from his first novel, The Shifting of the Fire, through the major and many of the minor works to the culmination of his development as a writer, the tetralogy Parade's End. She begins with the powerful influence of the Pre-Raphaelites, among whom Ford's childhood was spent, and then examines the effects of collaboration with Conrad on the young writer's development. ...Snitow's thorough understanding of Ford's age and her perceptive analysis of his work provide an invaluable portrait of the birth of literary modernism. She sees Ford as both the quintessential Edwardian and the perennial outsider, never sure of anything, least of all his own point of view."