Historical Fiction · EpicFour children see a killing in the woods, and a town faces plague
World Without End
by Ken Follett
Four children keep a secret from the woods and grow up in a town that is about to change
In 1327, four children in Kingsbridge witness a killing in the woods and agree to say nothing. Their lives then take them in different directions: a gifted builder, a clever girl who wants to heal, a violent knight and a poor girl with a hard road ahead. Over decades, the town, its cathedral and its people are tested by ambition, rivalry and plague.
More about this book
Who
Four children, Merthin, Ralph, Caris and Gwenda, who see a killing in the woods on All Hallows Day. They promise to keep silent, and the secret follows them into adult life.
World
Kingsbridge, a fictional English town, in 1327 and the decades after. The descendants of characters from The Pillars of the Earth live there, 157 years later. Some chapters also move to France.
What makes it different
The cathedral stands already, so the building question is a tower and a bridge. Follett drew on a real event, the structural failure of a tower at the Cathedral of Santa María in Vitoria-Gasteiz, which he mentions in his acknowledgements.
Feel
A long, slow historical epic that follows its characters across a lifetime.
Page count and cover shown for: Selected edition
Behind the book
Follett has said in his acknowledgements that the tower failure in the novel draws on real events at the Cathedral of Santa María in Vitoria-Gasteiz.
Source: Wikipedia
Further reading
- World Without EndWikipedia
- Ken Follett's Kingsbridge books in orderPan Macmillan