Some Do Not …

The opening novel of Ford’s Parade’s End tetralogy introduces Christopher Tietjens, a brilliant and old-fashioned government statistician whose sense of honor leaves him defenseless against a cruel age. His marriage to the beautiful, vindictive Sylvia is a slow torture, while his growing love for the young suffragette Valentine Wannop offers a tenderness he will not let himself claim. Set in the last days of Edwardian England and the first shock of the war, the book moves by suggestion and fractured memory rather than straight narration. First published in 1924, it launched one of the great English novel sequences of the century. Read it free as a PDF and EPUB edition.