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Author | Ford M. Hueffer (name used by Ford Madox Ford at that time) |
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Country | United Kingdom |
Language | English |
Genre | Science fiction novel |
Publisher | Constable |
Publication date | 1911 |
Media type | Print (hardback) |
Pages | 363 pp |
Ladies Whose Bright Eyes is a novel by Ford Madox Ford. It was written in 1911 and extensively revised in 1935. The first edition was published as by "Ford Madox Hueffer", the form of his name he used at that time. The revised edition was published as by "Ford Madox Ford", the name he adopted after World War I.
Although it has a time travel theme of a sort, is usually classed as mainstream literature rather than science fiction. As its author explicitly stated, " (...)The idea of this book was suggested to me by Mark Twain's A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court . It occurred to me to wonder what would really happen to a modern man thrown back to the Middle Ages...". It has also been suggested that Ford's attempt to divorce his wife, Elsie Martindale Hueffer and marry Violet Hunt lies behind the novel's time-travelling theme. [1]
Unlike Twain's Hank Morgan and some successors, Ford's Mr. Sorrell makes only a very half-hearted attempt to build modern weaponry and machinery in the Middle Ages. His initial dream of constructing "guns and gas bombs" and making himself "mightier than kings" soon comes to naught. Though he had been a mining engineer in the twentieth century, he has no idea how to go about constructing such devices under fourteenth-century conditions, or even where there are tin deposits. Having later in his career become a publisher does not give him any idea of how to invent printing from scratch and anticipate Gutenberg. He does not know how to make a gun, or in fact anything that would make him useful in the medieval castle community into which he has fallen.
Instead, Mr. Sorrell finds that a golden cross which he carries causes him to be mistaken for a Greek miracle-worker – which has many advantages in medieval society, including enjoying the unlimited hospitality of a castle and having beautiful ladies vying with each other for his love. He also inspires the ladies to take up arms and hold a tournament in competition with their knightly husbands – and being a fair horseman, makes a credible effort at becoming a knight himself.
It is the reverse of A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court , but the details of daily life are rendered more feelingly, including the quite earthy and mercenary motivations of many of the medieval characters (for example, the small-minded power struggles taking place in a nunnery, under a very thin veneer of piety). Cathedrals, so stately and calm to us, turn out to have been crowded, garish, noisy, and commercial.
Just as he begins to really enjoy himself as a thoroughly medieval man, Mr. Sorrell is rather frustratingly thrust back to the twentieth century – a modern man wiser for having been instructed by the people (especially the women) of the past, and having "learned the wisdom of history".
Ford Madox Brown was a British painter of moral and historical subjects, notable for his distinctively graphic and often Hogarthian version of the Pre-Raphaelite style. Arguably, his most notable painting was Work (1852–1865). Brown spent the latter years of his life painting the twelve works known as The Manchester Murals, depicting Mancunian history, for Manchester Town Hall.
Ford Madox Ford was an English novelist, poet, critic and editor whose journals The English Review and The Transatlantic Review were important in the development of early 20th-century English and American literature.
Pendragon or Pen Draig, is the epithet of Uther, father of King Arthur in the Matter of Britain in medieval and modern era and occasionally applied to historical Welsh heroes in medieval Welsh literature such as Rhodri ab Owain Gwynedd.
The Inheritors: An Extravagant Story (1901) is a quasi-science fiction novel on which Joseph Conrad and Ford Madox Ford collaborated. Written before the first World War, its themes of corruption and the effect of the 20th century on British aristocracy were prescient. It was first published in London by William Heinemann and later the same year in New York by McClure, Phillips and Company.
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court is an 1889 novel by American humorist and writer Mark Twain. The book was originally titled A Yankee in King Arthur's Court. Some early editions are titled A Yankee at the Court of King Arthur.
A Connecticut Yankee is a musical based on the 1889 novel A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court by American writer Mark Twain. Like most adaptations of the Twain novel, it focuses on the lighter aspects of the story. The music was written by Richard Rodgers, the lyrics by Lorenz Hart, and the book by Herbert Fields. It was produced by Lew Fields and Lyle D. Andrews. It enjoyed an original run on Broadway in 1927 of 421 performances and a number of revivals.
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Dinadan is a Cornish knight of the Round Table in the Arthurian legend's chivalric romance tradition of the Prose Tristan and its adaptations, including a part of Le Morte d'Arthur. Best known for his humor and pragmatism, he is a close friend of the protagonist Tristan. Dinadan is the subject of several often comedic episodes until his murder by Mordred and Agravain.
Unidentified Flying Oddball is a 1979 science fiction comedy film. It is based on Mark Twain's 1889 novel A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, directed by Russ Mayberry and produced by Walt Disney Productions. Released in the United Kingdom as The Spaceman and King Arthur, then subsequently re-released in the United States as A Spaceman in King Arthur's Court, the film stars Dennis Dugan as NASA employee Tom Trimble who unintentionally travels back in time with his look-alike android Hermes.
A Dream of John Ball (1888) is a novel by English author William Morris about the Great Revolt of 1381, conventionally called "the Peasants' Revolt". It features the rebel priest John Ball, who was accused of being a Lollard. He is famed for his question "When Adam delved and Eve span, who was then the gentleman?"
Francis Hueffer was a German-English writer on music, music critic, and librettist.
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court is a 1949 American comedy musical film directed by Tay Garnett and starring Bing Crosby, Rhonda Fleming, Sir Cedric Hardwicke and William Bendix.
A Connecticut Yankee is a 1931 American Pre-Code film adaptation of Mark Twain's 1889 novel, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court. It was directed by David Butler to a script by William M. Conselman, Owen Davis, and Jack Moffitt. It was produced by Fox Film Corporation, who had earlier produced the 1921 silent adaptation of the novel, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court. A Connecticut Yankee is the first sound film adaptation of Twain's novel. It is unrelated to the 1927 musical also titled A Connecticut Yankee.
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court is an 1889 novel by the American author Mark Twain.
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court is a 1921 American silent film adaptation of Mark Twain's 1889 novel A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court. The film was produced by the Fox Film Corporation and directed by Emmett J. Flynn based on a screenplay by Bernard McConville. It is notable as the first film adaptation of Twain's novel and as the second film about time travel to the past.
Charles Heber Clark was an American novelist and humorist. Most of his work was written under the pen name Max Adeler. Clark was also known by the pseudonym John Quill.
A total lunar eclipse occurred on 1 March 1504, visible at sunset for the Americas, and later over night over Europe and Africa, and near sunrise over Asia.
Oliver Madox Hueffer, was an English author, playwright, and war correspondent.
Elsie Martindale Hueffer was an early translator of Guy de Maupassant’s short stories into English. She was married to the novelist and poet Ford Madox Ford (1873-1939).