It’s the birthday of novelist and literary critic Ford Madox Ford (1873-1939), who was one of the greatest influences on literature in the first half or so of the 20th century. Best known for his masterpiece The Good Solider (1915), Ford’s work brought together the likes of Henry James, James Joyce, Joseph Conrad, Ezra Pound, H.G. Wells, Gertrude Stein, and [add the name of your own favorite modernist writer here].

Ford was born in Merton, Surrey, England. His father was a German immigrant and music critic and his mother was the daughter of the Pre-Raphaelite painter Ford Madox Brown. When his father died in 1889, Ford and his brother went to live with this grandfather in London, and both loved him so much they eventually took the name Madox. Ford attended University College School, a day school in London, thus avoiding the dreaded British boarding school, but never attended a university. It didn’t seem to matter: he published his first novels at only 17 and 18 years of age (The Brown Owl, 1891, The Shifting of Fire, 1892).

In 1894, Ford and his girlfriend Elsie Martindale ran off and got married; her father didn’t like it, because of Ford’s shaky financial prospects, though in retrospect, he really shouldn’t have liked it because of the habit Ford had of falling in love and having affairs, including, it is thought, with his sister-in-law. (Always an awkward choice.) Ford and Elsie had two children. During these early years, Ford befriended various famous authors, collaborated with Conrad on a novel about pirates, and had an agoraphobic breakdown; he sought mental restoration by staying with relatives in Germany. (This had to make it interesting when he later fought for England in WWI.) Finally, he left his wife and started The English Review (1908) and established himself as one of the greatest editors of the century. In 1915, he published The Good Soldier and also joined the army with a death wish that was almost fulfilled when he was concussed by an explosion and also gassed. He drew on these experiences for his tetralogy Parade’s End, which tells the life of an Englishman before, during, and after WWI. Some critics have called these works the greatest works of fiction about war in the English language, and even among the greatest English novels of the 20th century, so if fiction about war is your thing, or you’re a WWI buff, you’ve got your reading lined up well into the New Year.

Ford published nearly 80 books in his lifetime, as well as editing and generously supporting the works of many others. He had love affairs and set up house with several women and I just don’t feel up to tracking all that on a Monday, but he finally ended up with American painter Janice Biala, 30 years his junior, and they lived between New York, Paris, and Provence, practicing their art and growing vegetables. I can’t say specifically which vegetables, and I don’t know if he ever cheated on Janice, but a really good homegrown tomato covers a multitude of sins.

Have a blessed Monday, get some healthy veggies into your system, and stay scrupulously honest to the data.