A short life of the author
Ken Follett (b. 5 June 1949) was born Kenneth Martin Follett in Cardiff, Wales. He studied philosophy at University College London and worked as a journalist and publisher before turning to fiction.
Life and Career
Eye of the Needle (1978) — about a German spy in wartime Britain — won the Edgar Award and made him famous. He wrote several more thrillers in the 1980s, including The Key to Rebecca (1980) and Lie Down with Lions (1986).
The Pillars of the Earth (1989) — about the building of a Gothic cathedral in twelfth-century England, interweaving the lives of a builder, a monk, a noblewoman, and an earl — transformed his career. It became his most beloved novel and has sold over 27 million copies. The sequel, World Without End (2007), is set in the same town two centuries later.
The Century Trilogy — Fall of Giants (2010), Winter of the World (2012), and Edge of Eternity (2014) — follows five families across the twentieth century through both world wars, the Russian Revolution, the Cold War, and the civil rights era.
Major Works and Themes
Follett writes big, meticulously researched historical novels that combine epic scope with accessible, plot-driven storytelling. His strength is making complex historical periods vivid and readable.
Key Works
- Eye of the Needle (1978)
- The Pillars of the Earth (1989)
Collecting Follett
Eye of the Needle first edition (Futura, 1978) brings $100–$300. The Pillars of the Earth first edition (Macmillan, 1989) in fine condition with dust jacket brings $200–$500. Follett continues to publish.
Bibliography
| Title | Year | Publisher | Language |
|---|---|---|---|
| A Column of Fire The third Kingsbridge novel, set during the Elizabethan era — Ned Willard navigates the treacherous world of religious war and espionage as Protestants and Catholics tear Europe apart, while in Kingsbridge itself a new generation builds and destroys against the backdrop of the Reformation. | 2017 | Macmillan | English |
| Edge of Eternity The final volume of the Century Trilogy — the grandchildren of the original families navigate the Cold War, the Civil Rights movement, the Cuban Missile Crisis, Vietnam, and the fall of the Berlin Wall, completing a panoramic chronicle of the entire twentieth century. | 2014 | Macmillan | English |
| Eye of the Needle Follett's breakout thriller — a ruthless German spy codenamed 'Die Nadel' (the Needle) discovers the secret of the D-Day deception and must reach a U-boat to transmit the intelligence to Berlin, but a storm strands him on a remote Scottish island with a lonely woman and her crippled husband. | 1978 | Futura | English |
| Fall of Giants The first volume of the Century Trilogy — five interconnected families (Welsh, English, German, Russian, American) are swept up in the cataclysm of World War I and the Russian Revolution, a panoramic novel tracing how the war destroyed the old European order and birthed the modern world. | 2010 | Macmillan | English |
| Lie Down with Lions A Cold War thriller set in Afghanistan during the Soviet occupation — a love triangle between a French doctor, an American CIA agent, and an English nurse plays out against the mujahideen resistance, as the Americans attempt to supply Stinger missiles to the guerrillas through a remote valley. | 1986 | Hamish Hamilton | English |
| On Wings of Eagles A non-fiction thriller — the true story of how Ross Perot organized a private commando raid to rescue two of his EDS employees from an Iranian prison during the 1979 revolution, led by a retired Green Beret colonel, a corporate operation more audacious than most government rescues. | 1983 | Collins | English |
| The Key to Rebecca A WWII espionage thriller set in Cairo in 1942 — a German spy using Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca as his cipher key feeds Rommel intelligence about British troop movements, while a dissolute British intelligence officer races to identify and stop him before the Afrika Korps reaches the Nile. | 1980 | Hamish Hamilton | English |
| The Man from St. Petersburg A thriller set in London in 1914 — a Russian anarchist arrives to assassinate a prince who is negotiating a secret Anglo-Russian naval treaty, while an Earl's wife realizes the assassin is the father of her illegitimate daughter, weaving personal betrayal into the machinery of world war. | 1982 | Hamish Hamilton | English |
| The Pillars of the Earth Follett's medieval epic — the building of a cathedral in the fictional English town of Kingsbridge over forty years during the twelfth-century Anarchy, a sweeping novel of builders, monks, nobles, and outlaws that became one of the bestselling novels of the twentieth century. | 1989 | Macmillan | English |
| Winter of the World The second volume of the Century Trilogy — the children of the families from Fall of Giants face the rise of fascism, the Spanish Civil War, World War II, and the dawn of the atomic age, following them from Hitler's seizure of power through the bombing of Hiroshima. | 2012 | Macmillan | English |
| World Without End The sequel to The Pillars of the Earth, set in Kingsbridge two centuries later during the Black Death — a new generation of builders, merchants, and healers struggles against a corrupt prior and a feudal system collapsing under plague, as a woman fights to practice medicine and a merchant tries to transform the wool trade. | 2007 | Macmillan | English |