The Evening and the Morning

Ken Follett has written a prequel to his most popular novel The Pillars of the Earth, which was first published in 1989 and has sold 27 million copies worldwide. His new book The Evening and the Morning will be published in Autumn 2020.

The Evening and the Morning takes place around the year 1,000 when England is under constant attack from Vikings and soon to be conquered by Normans. The theme of the story is the origins of a legal system that does not merely serve its ruling chieftains.

Follett said, 'The story is set at the end of the Dark Ages and the beginning of the Middle Ages, so it's an evening and a morning. And the phrase is Biblical, of course: 'And the evening and the morning were the first day'. This is a time when people began to demand what we call the rule of law, which means that disputes are settled according to rules, regardless of how rich and powerful you are.'