The Content Reader

To continue with Ford Madox Ford, from the last post. He was also a critic and is known for remarking: " Open the book to page ninety-nine and read, and the quality of the whole will be revealed to you. ” Intriguing advice, which I at once sat out to follow. Here are extracts from some of the books on my table. Would you read these on behalf of the first lines of page 99? Naturally, you have to read the whole page, but I limit the text here to first line(s)/paragraph. Lizzie Siddal by Lucinda Hawksley The Ruskin vs. Ruskin court case, which came to an end in July 1854, was one of the most exciting scandals to hit London that year, not least because it involved so moral a figure as John Ruskin. 

This book is part of the ‘ Connected reading ’ with a connection to Ford Madox Brown, one of the Pre-Raphaelites. Ford Madox Ford was his grandson, through his daughter with Emma Hill, Catherine Madox Brown. This is his most famous book of his and is included in most lists of greatest novels of all times. Apart from a novelist he was also a poet, critic and editor of various journals. He lived in Paris in the 1920s and his friends included James Joyce, Ernest Hemingway, Gertrude Stein, Ezra Pound and Jean Rhys, and he helped to publish them all. Ford is the model for Hemingway’s character Braddocks in The Sun Also Rises , so this will be a natural connection to the next book. “ This is the saddest story I have ever heard .” So starts the book and The Saddest Story was intended to be the title of the book. However, the publishers suggested to change the title. The story is about two couples and their leisured life in Europe in the beginning of the 20th century. Two Americans and tw...