The Good Soldier

In The Good Soldier, Ford Madox Ford paved the way for over a century of thriller writers and film-makers who would go on to use the idea of the unreliable narrator to create mystery and suspense. Events in the story unfold just before World War I and chronicle the tragedy of Edward Ashburnham, the soldier to whom the title refers, and his own seemingly perfect marriage and that of two American friends. The novel opens with the famous line, “This is the saddest story I have ever heard.” 

The narrator explains that for nine years he, his wife Florence and their friends Ashburnham and his wife Leonora had an ostensibly normal friendship while Edward and Florence sought treatment for their heart ailments at a spa in Nauheim, Germany. As it turns out, nothing in the relationships or in the characters is as it first seems. Florence’s heart ailment is a fiction she perpetrated on John to force them to stay in Europe so that she could continue her affair with an American thug named Jimmy. Edward and Leonora have a loveless, imbalanced marriage broken by his constant infidelities (both of body and heart) and Leonora’s attempts to control Edward’s affairs (both financial and romantic). Dowell is a fool and is coming to realize how much of a fool he is, as Florence and Edward had an affair under his nose for nine years without John knowing until Florence was dead. 

The Good Soldier is a masterpiece of early twentieth-century fiction. This special edition includes original illustrations and a link to a free unabridged audio recording of The Good Soldier.