Return to Yesterday

by Ford Madox Ford

Return to Yesterday, Ford Madox Ford's exhilarating memoir, covers the years from 1894 to the outbreak of World War I - his transition from privileged godson of the Pre-Raphaelites to the great Modern writer and editor he became. Here he evokes England at large, and London in particular, its literary community, the political world of anarchists, of his friend Joseph Conrad's The Secret Agent.

360 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1931

About the author

Ford Madox Ford was an English novelist, poet, critic and editor whose journals The English Review and The Transatlantic Review were important in the development of early 20th-century English and American literature.

Ford is now remembered for his novels The Good Soldier (1915), the Parade's End tetralogy (1924–1928) and The Fifth Queen trilogy (1906–1908). The Good Soldier is frequently included among the great literature of the 20th century, including the Modern Library 100 Best Novels, The Observer′s "100 Greatest Novels of All Time", and The Guardian′s "1000 novels everyone must read".

Reviews

[Stephen · Rating 3 out of 5]

A bit of a curates egg this volume of FMF's autobiographical writings; it feels as if the period leading up to WW1 lacked form and identity for him. And as usual he leaves out all his affairs with women too, which I wish he revealed even a little about how he felt; he once mentions his daughter, which leaps out; it's the singular mention of his personal emotional life. You wouldn't know otherwise there were women in his life.

Still, I do enjoy reading his thoughts, which roam through literature, politics, and society; and the emerging vorticists and futurists, and he firmly of the past; or, so it seems.

[Sam Gilbert · Rating 4 out of 5]

Marvelous pen portraits. Esp. good (& punishing) on Henry James.