Ford, John

(?1586-1640)

   Born in Ilsington, Devon, he was educated at Exeter College, Oxford, before studying law at the Middle Temple in 1602. He became one of England's major dramatists of the Caroline period, whose tragedies - some eighteen - are of a high order. Not much is know of him apart from his poems and dramas. He collaborated with Thomas Dekker (see entry) on the play The Witch of Edmonton (1621). There is evidence of some collaboration with other dramatists-Thomas Middleton, John Fletcher, and Francis Beaumont (see entries) and William Rowley. His own plays are concerned with the qualities of human nature such as dignity, courage and endurance under suffering, or a noble and virtuous heroine who is torn between her true love and an unhappy forced marriage. Some of his plays: The Lover's Melancholy, 1629. Love's Sacrifice, 1633. 'Tis Pity She's a Whore, 1633. The Broken Heart, 1633. Perkin Warbeck, 1634. The Lady's Trial, 1639. Some of his poems: "Beauty's Beauty," "Can You Paint a Thought?" "Minutes are numbered by the fall of Sands," "Of This Ingenious Comedy."

   Sources: Biography of John Ford, and Links (http://www.bn23.com/portal/Arts/Literature/Drama/17th_Century/Ford__John). Dictionary of National Biography. Electronic Edition 1.1. Oxford University Press, 1997. Dictionary of National Biography. Electronic Edition 1.1. Oxford University Press, 1997. Encyclopædia Britannica Ultimate Reference Suite DVD, 2006. Poets of the English Language. Vol. V. W.H. Auden and Norman Holmes Pearson, eds. Viking Press, 1950. The Oxford Book of Death. D.J. Enright, ed. Oxford University Press, 1987. The Oxford Companion to English Literature. 6th edition. Margaret Drabble, ed. Oxford University Press, 2000.