“The attractive Ford Madox Ford” dragged through the mud by Hemingway – Libération

“The attractive Ford Madox Ford” dragged through the mud by Hemingway – Libération
“The attractive Ford Madox Ford” dragged through the mud by Hemingway – Libération

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Splendor and misery by Ford Madox Ford, author with Joseph Conrad of “Heirs of the World”, a novel of anticipation for the first time translated into French.

“It is with anguish, even with horror, that Conrad would later remember his collaboration with Ford Madox Ford, from which three minor works were born”writes Stéphanie Bernard in the Cahier de l’Herne Conradpublished in 2014. And Conrad himself about the Heirs of the worldin a 1900 letter to his editor Edward Garnett cited by Maxime Rovère in his introduction to the nature of a crimelatest collaboration of the two authors (translated in 2013 by Rivages pocket): “I consider the publication of Heirs like a real stroke of luck. By Jupiter! What a farce! I decided to look at this affair as a sort of parody of the political novels that idiots undoubtedly write. […] And poor H. [Ford s’appelait encore Huefer, ndlr] was deadly sincere. Good God. What work he could have done! There isn't a single chapter that I haven't had him completely rewrite twice—mostly three times. […] There were times when I cursed the day I was born and didn't dare open my eyes to the day I had to spend with this story in mind. H. was more patient than an angel ever was. […] If I didn't insult him, in any case I implied by my remarks and by the course of our discussions the most epithets


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