World Without End

★ 4.5 avg 2978 votes

About this book

1 New York Times BestsellerIn 1989, Ken Follett astonished the literary world with The Pillars of the Earth, a sweeping epic novel set in twelfth-century England centered on the building of a cathedral and many of the hundreds of lives it affected. World Without End is its equally irresistible sequel—set two hundred years after The Pillars of the Earth and three hundred years after the Kingsbridge prequel, The Evening and the Morning.World Without End takes place in the same town of Kingsbridge, two centuries after the townspeople finished building the exquisite Gothic cathedral that was at the heart of The Pillars of the Earth. The cathedral and the priory are again at the center of a web of love and hate, greed and pride, ambition and revenge, but this sequel stands on its own. This time the men and women of an extraordinary cast of characters find themselves at a crossroads of new ideas—about medicine, commerce, architecture, and justice. In a world where proponents of the old ways fiercely battle those with progressive minds, the intrigue and tension quickly reach a boiling point against the devastating backdrop of the greatest natural disaster ever to strike the human race—the Black Death. Three years in the writing and nearly eighteen years since its predecessor, World Without End is a "well-researched, beautifully detailed portrait of the late Middle Ages" (The Washington Post) that once again shows that Ken Follett is a masterful author writing at the top of his craft.

4.5 ★★★★☆ average of 2 sources · 2978 votes
Apple Books 4.5 2978
Hardcover 4.2 406

Reader Profile

Enjoyment89Difficulty80Influence59Popularity53ClassicN/A

4.5/5 · 2978 readers · 1025 pages · ≈ 18 h 59 m · Challenging

What order should I read the Kingsbridge series?

Read World Without End first, then follow the publication order above — A Column of Fire, then World Without End, then The Pillars of the Earth, then A Column of Fire.

How long does it take to read World Without End?

About ≈ 18 h 59 m — 1025 pages, assuming roughly 250 words per page at 225 words per minute.Typical novel≈ 5 h 56 mWorld Without End~18 h 59 m

How many pages is World Without End?

1025 pages in its most-read edition.Typical novel320World Without End1025

What genre is World Without End?

It sits on the Romance shelves.

Who wrote World Without End?

Ken Follett.

Kingsbridge — reading order

  1. → World Without End you are here
  2. 1 A Column of Fire
  3. 2 World Without End (1961)
  4. 3 The Pillars of the Earth (1989)
  5. 4 A Column of Fire (2017)