Parade's End/Ford Madox Ford

Parade's End is the great British war novel and Ford Madox Ford's major achievement
as a novelist. Originally published as four linked novels between 1924 and 1928,
it follows the story of Christopher Tietjens, as his life is shattered by his wife's
infidelities and overturned by the mud, blood and destruction of the First World
War. Tietjens, with his old-fashioned Tory values, is already out of step with the
corrupt political culture of Edwardian England: his experiences at the Front and
his developing relationship with the suffragette Valentine Wannop force him into
a radical reconfiguring of his values as he participates in the post-war period
of national re-construction.

Parade's End is both a subtly perceptive psychological novel and a
richly descriptive chronicle of 'the public events of a decade'. Through Tietjens,
his beautiful (and unforgettably cruel) wife, Sylvia, and the principled Valentine,
Ford draws us into the world of the English upper class as it goes through a period
of crisis and transformation.