Kingsbridge Books in Order
Ken Follett spent years researching medieval cathedral construction before writing The Pillars of the Earth. It shows. The 1989 novel follows three generations of families in the fictional English town of Kingsbridge as they build a cathedral over four decades. The construction process becomes a lens for examining everything from feudal economics to religious politics to medieval engineering.
The books are long. Pillars runs over 1,000 pages. Follett fills them with detail about how 12th-century people actually lived, worked, loved, and died. You learn about quarrying stone, raising arches, and mixing mortar. You also learn about arranged marriages, plague outbreaks, and the constant threat of violence from nobles who answer to no one.
World Without End jumps ahead to 14th-century Kingsbridge as the Black Death arrives in England. A Column of Fire moves to the religious wars of the 16th century. The Evening and the Morning goes backward to the Dark Ages, showing the town's founding. The Armor of Light reaches the Industrial Revolution. Each book spans decades and follows multiple storylines that eventually converge.
Follett researches obsessively and dramatizes the results. Critics sometimes find the villains too villainous and the heroes too heroic, but readers keep buying the books. The series has sold over 50 million copies, and Pillars regularly appears on lists of the best historical novels ever written.