The achievement of Ford Madox Ford as editor

Abstract

This thesis challenges the conventional opinion that Ford Madox Ford was a great editor. It establishes criteria by which an editor can be judged; these are the literary and cultural opinions on which a review operates, an awareness of the needs of readers of a review as revealed in its style and content, and the way in which a review is managed. These criteria are applied to three different, though overlapping fields of enquiry. Firstly, the thesis examines how far Ford's editorial practice was consistent with his own literary and critical principles as expressed through a long and varied writing career. Secondly, it places the two reviews edited by Ford in the context of the society which produced them, English Review in London between 1908 and 1910, and The Transatlantic Review in Paris in 1924, and compares these two reviews with a wide range of contemporary cultural journals on the basis of the three criteria outlined above. Finally the study compares Ford's achievement as editor of The English Review and The Transatlantic Review. It concludes that while Ford was a good editor in some respects, he was not the great editor which is so often claimed for him