ABSTRACT
This chapter outlines the subsequent critical history of Ford Madox Ford’s tetralogy, as a prelude to its main task: focus on the structure of the work, especially its temporal structure, and the opportunities thereby provided for future research. It provides a comparable chronology for the events in Parade’s End and then to consider the major findings and their implications for future research. In the UK, two volumes of The Bodley Head Ford Madox Ford appeared in 1963, edited by Graham Greene, including Parade’s End—under that title—but omitting Last Post. Ford had given a virtuoso example of the handling of time in The Good Soldier. Criticism of The Good Soldier has long benefited from the establishing of the chronological sequence of the events in the plot, which, once tabulated, throw up some of the inconsistencies in Dowell’s narration, and also casts light on some of the obscurities in the story.
