This Norton Critical Edition presents the first scrupulously edited text of the novel, collating all manuscript, typescript, and variant printed versions in Ford's lifetime.

Everything necessary for careful study of the novel is here: comprehensive annotation, material on manuscript development and textual variants, a detailed "Note on the Text", and relevant illustrations. Together, these materials present readers with both a freshly edited text and the opportunity to reconstruct alternative readings.

"Contemporary Reviews" includes fifteen important assessments of the work, all of which appeared within four months of the novel's publication.

"Literary Impressionism" collects eight critiques on the technique, including three by Ford and related writings by Henry James and Joseph Conrad, among others.

"Biographical and Critical Commentary" collects seventeen differing assessments of The Good Soldier. Richard Aldington, Samuel Hynes, John A. Meixner, Frank Kermode, Carol Jacobs, Thomas C. Moser, Ann Barr Snitow, Vincent J. Cheng, and Paul B. Armstrong are among the contributors.

A Selected Bibliography is also included.