ABSTRACT
In a 1927 review of G. Jean-Aubry’s Joseph Conrad: Life and Letters in The New York Herald Tribune Books, Ford Madox Ford opens with a seemingly nonchalant and casual—although typically precise and artful—first-person anecdote, which encapsulates much about his complex and ambivalent relationship to life-writing. The recurring theme in criticism of Ford’s life-writing is the relationship of fact and fiction. In Hans Holbein, however, biographical material is suspect, Ford suggests, for a different reason: ‘it must be remembered that biographical details regarding Holbein are largely conjectural and more than largely controversial’. Throughout the reminiscences, Ford also strikes other poses, and figures himself for us in diverse roles and personas. The way in which these autobiographies are also group biographies, with Ford always there as an organising presence, is a central aspect of Ford’s self-presentation and identity. It Was the Nightingale also connects continually with Ford’s fiction.
