Ford Madox Ford, editor of the English Review, picked this manuscript from the slush pile late one afternoon and, after reading the first page, told his secretary ‘We’ve found our new genius.’
Many years later Ford, recalling that moment, subjected Lawrence’s opening paragraph to a very close reading, one which serves equally to confirm Lawrence’s genius as a writer and Ford’s as a reader and editor. All writers need readers like Ford; some deserve them. Everyone with skin in the game should read Ford’s compelling account.
Four different versions of Lawrence’s text appear in the University of Nottingham’s online archive. Best of all is Lawrence’s marked-up proof copy, viewable here.
I repeat: everyone with skin in the game should read Ford’s analysis of what it was that snagged his interest in the Lawrence manuscript. And that includes readers, of course. Because Ford only had to read the first page to be secure in his conviction that Lawrence was, or would become, a great writer.
First published in The English Review, July 1911, and collected in The Prussian Officer and Other Stories, Duckworth, 1914, and widely anthologised since
