Sad Stories? Ford’s narratives of adultery and regeneration This is the saddest story I have ever heard. The Good Soldier O Father O’Ford you’ve a masterful way with you. Maid, wife and widow are wild to make hay with you. Blond and brunette turn-about run away with you. You’ve such a way with you, Father O’Ford. That instant they see the sunshine from your eyes Their hearts flitter flutter, they think and they sigh: We kiss the ground before thee, we madly adore thee And crave and implore thee to take us, O Lord! James Joyce, ‘Father O’Ford’, Poems and Shorter Writings Ford Madox Ford might have had, as James Joyce smirkingly reckoned, a certain way with the ladies; indeed, this ‘masterful way’ of his may have been responsible for his unconventional marital, or extra-marital, relationships. And, indeed, it may have been ultimately responsible for a certain amount of sadness in his personal life. Ford’s life-story contributes much to the ‘sad stories’ that comprise the bulk of what are widely regarded as Ford’s most important fictional contributions, most notably, The Good Soldier (1915) and the Tietjens tetralogy, Parade’s End (1924-1928). Nevertheless, the principal question I aim to answer is not ‘How closely are Ford’s novels fashioned on his life?’ but rather ‘Are Ford’s adultery narratives unequivocally “sad stories” or does he offer a final positive vision?’ Certainly The Good Soldier is a sad story; maybe it is even the saddest story, as Ford’s narrator claims. It is possible to argue, however, that with Parade’s End, and particularly with the final novel of the tetralogy, The Last Post, Ford ultimately creates a harmonious vision of life – a vision of life regenerated, or resurrected, from the rubble of the First World War. 1 It is possible, too, to argue that Parade’s End offers a vision of renewal, following the destruction, pain and chaos depicted in The Good Soldier. In this way, the latter group of novels is the completion of 1 Graham Greene, as editor of the Bodley Head Parade’s End, would disagree with my assertion that The Last Post is an important, even indispensable, component of the tetralogy, or, as he would have it, the trilogy. Greene’s edition of 1963 was the first to exclude The Last Post, in accordance with Ford’s wishes. Greene’s reasons for the exclusion of The Last Post, and mine for arguing its indispensability to the series of novels, will be considered at length later on.