ABSTRACT
Some of Ford Madox Ford’s critical journalism has become well known and is frequently cited: his essay ‘On Impressionism’, for example, in relation to The Good Soldier. Professional reviewers often had little understanding of the writer’s craft, or of the strategies adopted by writers in relation to their audience—what Ford understood as technique. Ford was acutely aware of the expected career path of the aspirational writer in the culture of the time, and of the relative status attached to each level of authorship in the literary marketplace. The late nineteenth century saw the beginnings of what has become known as The New Journalism, a concept popularized by Matthew Arnold in an essay entitled ‘Up to Easter’, published in 1887. The young Ford believed that he had the ability to engage a popular audience and educate them into an understanding of the workings of the literary arts.
