The Good Soldier

2020 Reprint of the 1915 Edition. Ford's 1915 novel is set just before World War I and chronicles the tragedy of Edward Ashburnham, the soldier to whom the title refers, and his seemingly perfect marriage plus that of his two American friends. The novel is told using a series of flashbacks in non-chronological order, a literary technique that formed part of Ford's pioneering view of literary impressionism. Ford employs the device of the unreliable narrator to great effect as the main character gradually reveals a version of events that is quite different from what the introduction leads the reader to believe. The novel was loosely based on two incidents of adultery and on Ford's messy personal life.
Using pre-First World War Europe as its stage, The Good Soldier is the story of Edward Ashburnham, his wife Leonora, and their friends, John and Florence Dowell. The eponymous Good Soldier, Edward embodies upper-class English values but behind closed doors carries on a long-running affair with Florence. When Florence's husband, John, discovers the affair, he sets in motion a series of events both tragic and unavoidable.