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The Fifth Queen (1906-1908) is a trilogy of novels by Ford Madox Ford. Set during the reign of Henry VIII, Ford's trilogy recreates Tudor England in a masterful story of court intrigue, romance, and betrayal. Focusing on the tragic figure of Katharine Howard, the fifth wife of the King, Ford investigates the interconnection of sex and power in a political atmosphere clouded by violence and espionage. Depicting some of the era's most notorious figures, including Thomas Cromwell, Bloody Mary, and the King himself, Ford makes history both entertaining and undeniably human. Brought to the court of King Henry VIII by her cousin Thomas Culpeper, Katharine Howard, a noblewoman whose family's fortunes had been in decline for some time, inadvertently catches the eye of his majesty. Given a position as a lady in waiting for Lady Mary, Howard-though opposed by the brutally efficient schemer Thomas Cromwell-soon distinguishes herself in the eyes of the King, who makes her his fifth Queen. Thrust into the spotlight at the age of seventeen, she finds herself forced into an impossible role as a public figure whose every move could enrage her notoriously violent husband. Married to the Henry for a brief time before she was unceremoniously divorced and beheaded, Howard has traditionally been seen as a minor figure in the history of Tudor England. For Ford, however, a master storyteller with an eye for tragedy and a skill for developing flawed, convincingly human characters, Howard is a woman whose life and death are not only worthy of literature, but instructive for the men and women of Edwardian England. This edition of Ford Madox Ford's The Fifth Queen Trilogy is a classic work of British literature reimagined for modern readers.
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About the author
Ford Madox Ford (1873-1939) was born Ford Hermann Hueffer in Kent, England. He was a prolific novelist, poet, critic, and editor whose influential journals The English Review and The Transatlantic Review promoted the work of such writers as Thomas Hardy, H. G. Wells, Joseph Conrad, James Joyce, William Butler Yeats, Gertrude Stein, and Ernest Hemingway, and debuted works of Ezra Pound, Wyndham Lewis, and D. H. Lawrence. The Good Soldier was published in 1915-the year Ford enlisted in the army where he served as an infantry officer during the Battle of the Somme and at the Ypres Salient. Ford is also known for Parade's End, a series of four novels about his experiences during the First World War. The Good Soldier is counted among the greatest works of literature of the twentieth century.
