Ford, Maddox Ford

[Parade's End tetralogy comprising:] Some Do Not — No More Parades — A Man Could Stand up — The Last Post. New York: Albert & Charles Boni and the Literary Guild, 1926-1928

Each 8vo (7 1/2 x 5 ins; 190 x 128 mm). Publisher's cloth. Original printed dust-jackets; tiny bit of fraying at head of spine panels, minor chipping at head of last title. First three housed together in publisher's illustrated card slipcase; worn, top panel of slipcase perished. 

The Tietjen novels presented  to modernist muse Jeanne Foster, with inscriptions referencing the titles."The Gods to each assign a differing lot, | some rest on snowy bosoms some do not." on the endpaper of the first, "The adjutant wd. stand  the Bn at ease, the band would play Land of Hope and Glory, then the adjutant wd say: There will be no more parades" in the second, "You want to stand up! Take a look around...Like as if you wanted to breathe deep after bein in a stoopin posture for a long time p. 142" to the third title. Each"To Jeanne R. Foster | Ford Maddox Ford  | New York Dec MCMXXVI." The final of the four is simply inscribed without quotation in December, 1927.

A friend and correspondent of Pound and Yeats, Foster, fashion model and literary editor, was described by Ford as "a ravishingly beautiful lady" (a sentiment no doubt shared by collector John Quinn with whom she had a particularly close relationship). Indeed, many of the letters Ford wrote to Foster read like love letters, but it is maintained that his was a passion unfulfilled.  American editior of Ford's influential The Transatlantic Review,  she continued to act as agent for Pound once the magazine ceased publication. Foster moved to upstate New York, where she lost contact with many of the literary figures she had been close to.

Inscribed sets of Parade's End are uncommon, and particulalry so with such close association.