Follett takes you to a time long past with brio and razor-sharp storytelling. An epic tale in which you will lose yourself."– The Denver Post on World Without EndKen Follett's World Without End was a global phenomenon, a work of grand historical sweep, beloved by millions of readers and acclaimed by critics as "well-researched, beautifully detailed [with] a terrifically compelling plot" (The Washington Post) and "wonderful history wrapped around a gripping story" (St. Louis Post- Dispatch)Fall of Giants is his magnificent new historical epic. The first novel in The Century Trilogy, it follows the fates of five interrelated families-American, German, Russian, English, and Welsh-as they move through the world-shaking dramas of the First World War, the Russian Revolution, and the struggle for women's suffrage.Thirteen-year-old Billy Williams enters a man's world in the Welsh mining pits…Gus Dewar, an American law student rejected in love, finds a surprising new career in Woodrow Wilson's White House…two orphaned Russian brothers, Grigori and Lev Peshkov, embark on radically different paths half a world apart when their plan to emigrate to America falls afoul of war, conscription, and revolution…Billy's sister, Ethel, a housekeeper for the aristocratic Fitzherberts, takes a fateful step above her station, while Lady Maud Fitzherbert herself crosses deep into forbidden territory when she falls in love with Walter von Ulrich, a spy at the German embassy in London…These characters and many others find their lives inextricably entangled as, in a saga of unfolding drama and intriguing complexity, Fall of Giants moves seamlessly from Washington to St. Petersburg, from the dirt and danger of a coal mine to the glittering chandeliers of a palace, from the corridors of power to the bedrooms of the mighty. As always with Ken Follett, the historical background is brilliantly researched and rendered, the action fast-moving, the characters rich in nuance and emotion. It is destined to be a new classic.In future volumes of The Century Trilogy, subsequent generations of the same families will travel through the great events of the rest of the twentieth century, changing themselves-and the century itself. With passion and the hand of a master, Follett brings us into a world we thought we knew, but now will never seem the same again.
The first book in the Century series, 2010
To the memory of my parents,
Martin and Veenie Follett.
DEWAR FAMILY
Senator Cameron Dewar
Ursula Dewar, his wife
Gus Dewar, their son
VYALOV FAMILY
Josef Vyalov, businessman
Lena Vyalov, his wife
Olga Vyalov, their daughter
OTHERS
Rosa Hellman, journalist
Chuck Dixon, school friend of Gus’s
Marga, nightclub singer
Nick Forman, thief
Ilya, thug
Theo, thug
Norman Niall, crooked accountant
Brian Hall, union leader
REAL HISTORICAL CHARACTERS
Woodrow Wilson, twenty-eighth president
William Jennings Bryan, secretary of state
Joseph Daniels, secretary of the navy
FITZHERBERT FAMILY
Earl Fitzherbert, called Fitz
Princess Elizaveta, called Bea, his wife
Lady Maud Fitzherbert, his sister
Lady Hermia, called Aunt Herm, their poor aunt
The Duchess of Sussex, their rich aunt
Gelert, Pyrenean mountain dog
Grout, Fitz’s butler
Sanderson, Maud’s maid
OTHERS
Mildred Perkins, Ethel Williams’s lodger
Bernie Leckwith, secretary of the Aldgate branch of the Independent Labour Party
Bing Westhampton, Fitz’s friend
Marquis of Lowther, “Lowthie,” rejected suitor of Maud
Albert Solman, Fitz’s man of business
Dr. Greenward, volunteer at the baby clinic
Lord “Johnny” Remarc, junior War Office minister
Colonel Hervey, aide to Sir John French
Lieutenant Murray, aide to Fitz
Mannie Litov, factory owner
Jock Reid, treasurer of the Aldgate Independent Labour Party
Jayne McCulley, soldier’s wife
REAL HISTORICAL CHARACTERS
King George V
Queen Mary
Mansfield Smith-Cumming, called “C,” head of the Foreign Section of the Secret Service Bureau (later MI6)
Sir Edward Grey, M.P., foreign secretary
Sir William Tyrrell, private secretary to Grey
Frances Stevenson, mistress of Lloyd George
Winston Churchill, M.P.
H. H. Asquith, M.P., prime minister
Sir John French, commander of the British Expeditionary Force
Gini, a bar girl
Colonel Dupuys, aide to General Galliéni
General Lourceau, aide to General Joffre
REAL HISTORICAL CHARACTERS
General Joffre, commander in chief of French forces
General Galliéni, commander of the Paris garrison
VON ULRICH FAMILY
Otto von Ulrich, diplomat
Susanne von Ulrich, his wife
Walter von Ulrich, their son, military attaché at the German embassy in London
Greta von Ulrich, their daughter
Graf (Count) Robert von Ulrich, Walter’s second cousin, military attaché at the Austrian embassy in London
OTHERS
Gottfried von Kessel, cultural attaché at the German embassy in London
Monika von der Helbard, Greta’s best friend
REAL HISTORICAL CHARACTERS
Prince Karl Lichnowsky, German ambassador to London
Field Marshal Paul von Hindenburg
General of Infantry Erich Ludendorff
Theobald von Bethmann-Hollweg, German chancellor
Arthur Zimmermann, German foreign minister
PESHKOV FAMILY
Grigori Peshkov, metalworker
Lev Peshkov, horse wrangler
PUTILOV MACHINE WORKS
Konstantin, lathe operator, chairman of the Bolshevik discussion group
Isaak, captain of the football team
Varya, female laborer, Konstantin’s mother
Serge Kanin, supervisor of the casting section
Count Maklakov, director
OTHERS
Mikhail Pinsky, police officer
Ilya Kozlov, his sidekick
Nina, maid to Princess Bea
Prince Andrei, Bea’s brother
Katerina, a peasant girl new to the city
Mishka, bar owner
Trofim, gangster
Fyodor, corrupt cop
Spirya, passenger on the Angel Gabriel
Yakov, passenger on the Angel Gabriel
Anton, clerk at the Russian embassy in London, also a spy for Germany
David, Jewish soldier
Sergeant Gavrik
Lieutenant Tomchak
REAL HISTORICAL CHARACTERS
Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, leader of the Bolshevik Party
Leon Trotsky
WILLIAMS FAMILY
David Williams, union organizer
Cara Williams, his wife
Ethel Williams, their daughter
Billy Williams, their son
Gramper, Cara’s father
GRIFFITHS FAMILY
Len Griffiths, atheist and Marxist
Mrs. Griffiths
Tommy Griffiths, their son, Billy Williams’s best friend
PONTI FAMILY
Mrs. Minnie Ponti
Giuseppe “Joey” Ponti, her son
Giovanni “Johnny” Ponti, his younger brother
MINERS
David Crampton, “Dai Crybaby”
Harry “Suet” Hewitt
John Jones the Shop
Dai Chops, the butcher’s son
Pat Pope, Main Level onsetter
Micky Pope, Pat’s son
Dai Ponies, horse wrangler
Bert Morgan
MINE MANAGEMENT
Perceval Jones, chairman of Celtic Minerals
Maldwyn Morgan, colliery manager
Rhys Price, colliery manager’s deputy
Arthur “Spotty” Llewellyn, colliery clerk
STAFF AT TŶ GWYN
Peel, butler
Mrs. Jevons, housekeeper
Morrison, footman
OTHERS
Dai Muck, sanitary worker
Mrs. Dai Ponies
Mrs. Roley Hughes
Mrs. Hywel Jones
Private George Barrow, B Company
Private Robin Mortimer, cashiered officer, B Company
Private Owen Bevin, B Company
Sergeant Elijah “Prophet” Jones, B Company
Second Lieutenant James Carlton-Smith, B Company
Captain Gwyn Evans, A Company
Second Lieutenant Roland Morgan, A Company
REAL HISTORICAL CHARACTERS
David Lloyd George, Liberal member of Parliament
