It begins with a curse, a song and a hanging, and it builds into a magnificent adventure no reader will ever forget. At once a sensuous and enduring love story and an epic that shines with the fierce spirit of a passionate age, THE PILLARS OF THE EARTH is without doubt Ken Follett's masterpiece, and a story for all time...

Nothing happens the way you plan it.

A lot of people were surprised by The Pillars of the Earth,including me. I was known as a thriller writer. In the book business, when you have had a success, the smart thing to do is write the same sort of thing once a year for the rest of your life. Clowns should not try to play Hamlet; pop stars should not write symphonies. I should not have risked my reputation by writing something out of character and overambitious.

What"s more, I don"t believe in God. I"m not what you would call a spiritual person. According to my agent, my greatest problem as a writer is that I"m not a tortured soul.The last thing anyone would have expected from me was a story about building a church.

So Pillars was an unlikely book for me to write - and I almost didn"t. I started it, then dropped it, and did not look at it again for ten years.

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17