Women’s Writing in the British Isles from the Beginnings to the Present
Ford Madox Ford
-
Standard Name: Ford, Ford Madox
Indexed Name: Ford Maddox Ford
Used Form: Ford Madox Hueffer
Used Form: Ford Madox H. Hueffer
Used Form: Ford H. Madox Hueffer
FMF
(who began publishing as Ford Madox Hueffer) was a significant figure in British and international modernism, and a prolific writer during the 1890s and the earlier part of the twentieth century. He produced fiction, criticism (of art, literature, and culture), autobiography, and other genres, and edited both the transatlantic review, which began and ended in 1924, and the English Review. Best remembered for the experimental aspects of his early novel The Good Soldier and of his war tetralogy, Parade's End, he was also a factor in the personal and literary development of two women writers, Violet Hunt
and Jean Rhys
.
Ford
had not become a naturalized German citizen by September 1911, but he reaffirmed to Hunt that they would soon marry. She then met him for a holiday in Germany and France. During this...
Family and Intimate relationships
Violet Hunt
A number of Hunt's and Ford's associates testified that the couple appeared frequently in public as man and wife, and that others believed them to be married. No documentation was produced, however, of Ford
's...
Family and Intimate relationships
Violet Hunt
VH
met Ford Madox Hueffer
, later Ford Madox Ford, at a London dinner party held by John Galsworthy
.
Belford, Barbara. Violet. Simon and Schuster.
136
Family and Intimate relationships
Violet Hunt
VH
marked several points of decline in her relationship with Ford
. She told Rebecca West
that Ford was somewhat repelled
Belford, Barbara. Violet. Simon and Schuster.
220
by her after he learned in 1914 that she had syphilis. She also...
Family and Intimate relationships
Violet Hunt
VH
met with Ford Madox Ford
at his home for dinner, after leaving the office of the English Review, where they both worked; she prevented his suicide attempt and they became lovers the next evening.
Though often temporarily separated from him by a range of commitments and conflicts, VH
lived with Ford Madox Hueffer
in London; she leased their primary residence, South Lodge.
Belford, Barbara. Violet. Simon and Schuster.
152
Wealth and Poverty
Violet Hunt
Her death prompted a legal battle over her estate. VH
's sisters, Venetia
and Silvia
, contested the will in an attempt to exclude her from her share of the £23,589 estate. They disapproved of...
Family and Intimate relationships
Violet Hunt
Though she was not named in the suit, VH
was stunned and humiliated when she saw in a news headline that a court had ordered her lover, Ford Madox Ford
, to return to his...
Textual Production
Violet Hunt
During VH
's tenure at Black and White magazine, her mother, Margaret Hunt
, already a successful novelist, edited her reviews.
Belford, Barbara. Violet. Simon and Schuster.
92
In 1909, Hunt and her close friend Agnes Farley
took dictation from Hunt's...
Travel
Violet Hunt
VH
and Ford Madox Ford
began a tour of Germany, where he planned to obtain citizenship, in order to divorce his wife
and marry Hunt without the restrictions imposed by the English legal system.
Rogers, John H., editor. Dictionary of Literary Biography 162. Gale Research.
162: 147
though she and her lover Ford Madox Ford
were never legally wed.
Family and Intimate relationships
Violet Hunt
Relying on false information given by Ford
, the Daily Mirror published a piece on his marriage to VH
; similar statements in The Sphere and The Sketch prompted controversy. Ford's legal wife
planned to...
Publishing
Violet Hunt
Hunt used the £60 in royalties from this book to pay for the dental work of her lover, Ford Madox Ford
.
Belford, Barbara. Violet. Simon and Schuster.
178
Family and Intimate relationships
Violet Hunt
The libel trial of The Throne magazine began; the ultimately successful suit had been brought by Elsie Ford
, who objected to a review which wrongly referred to VH
as the wife of Elsie's husband,...
