Thoughts Are Things

Parade's End is a tetralogy of novels by the British novelist and poet Ford Madox Ford (1873-1939), first published from 1924 to 1928, public domain. The novels chronicle the life of a member of the English gentry before, during and after World War I. The setting is mainly England and the Western Front of the First World War, in which Ford had served as an officer in the Welch Regiment, a life he vividly depicts. Christopher Tietjens has long loved the beautiful young suffragette Valentine, but the pair are held apart by Christopher s loyalty to his wife Sylvia, despite her callous infidelities, and to a set of principles which belong to an old world, and which are about to be swallowed up in the mud and chaos of the Western Front. This majestic four-part novel is one of the finest achievements of 20th century literature.