New York

The bestselling master of historical fiction weaves a sweeping drama of New York from the city's founding to the present day.

Rutherfurd's vast and sweeping tome charts the Big Apple's rise from its beginnings in the 17th century to the present day

Sweeping, expertly researched ... a brilliant introduction to the history of New York, full of suspense, adventure and passion

A masterful tribute to one of the great cities of the world

It is hard to imagine any other writer combining such astonishing depth of research with the imagination and ingenuity to hold it together

Edward Rutherfurd was born in England, in the cathedral city of Salisbury. Educated locally, and at the universities of Cambridge, and Stanford, California, he worked in political research, bookselling and publishing. After numerous attempts to write books and plays, he finally abandoned his career in the book trade in 1983, and returned to his childhood home to write Sarum. Four years later, when the book was published, it became an instant international bestseller, remaining 23 weeks on the New York Times Bestseller List. 
 
Since then he has written seven more bestsellers: Russka, a novel of Russia; London; The Forest, set in England's New Forest which lies close by Sarum; two novels which cover the story of Ireland from the time just before Saint Patrick to the twentieth century; New York; and Paris. His books have been translated into over twenty languages.

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A sweeping, epic novel of the greatest city in the world. 
 
From the empty grandeur of the New World to the skyscrapers of the City that Never Sleeps, from the intimate detail of lives long forgotten to those lived today at breakneck speed, Edward Rutherfurd's acclaimed novel is a true epic. 
 
The novel begins with a tiny Indian fishing village and the Dutch traders who first carved out their hopes amidst the splendour of the wilderness. The British settlers and merchants followed, with their aristocratic governors and unpopular taxation which led to rebellion, war, the burning of the city and the birth of the American Nation. Yet a country that had already rent itself asunder once did so again over slavery. As the country fought its bloody Civil War, the city was torn apart by deadly riots. 
 
Hopes and dreams, greed and corruption - they have always been the companions of freedom and opportunity in the city's teeming streets. As the immigrant ships berthed next to Ellis Island in the shadow of the Statue of Liberty, they poured more and more Germans, Irish, Italians and Jews into the churning ethnic mix of the city. Deals were struck, politicians corrupted, men bought or assassinated, heiresses wooed, fortunes were speculated on Wall Street and men became rich beyond the dreams of avarice. The heady seesaw of wealth and poverty was seen in the Roaring Twenties and the Great Crash, the city's future symbolised by its buildings which literally touched the sky: the Empire State, the Chrysler Building, the Twin Towers. 
 
Rutherfurd tells this irresistible story through a cast of fictional and true characters whose fates interweave in the rise and fall, fall and rise of the city's fortunes. It is the story of how in four centuries New York became the envy of the world. And in telling the story through the lens of New York, Rutherfurd brings the story of America itself to unforgettable life in this epic masterpiece.

London

A wonderful, epic story that tells the history of the greatest city in the world, from Roman times to the present day.

Edward Rutherfurd's grand novel weaves together the great events of English history ... he pulls off some remarkable effects

Few literary novels tell us as much about the history of modern humans, or have such clarity

London could hook you on history for life ... 800 pages of hold-your-breath suspense, buccaneering adventure, and passionate tales of love and war set in London from the birth of time to the present day

A grand, epic story that tells the history of the greatest city in the world, from Roman times to the present day. 
 
London has perhaps the most remarkable history of any city in the world. Now its story has a unique voice. 
 
In this epic novel Edward Rutherfurd takes the reader on a magnificent journey across sixteen centuries from the days of the Romans to the Victorian engineers of Tower Bridge and the era dockland development of today. Through the lives and adventures of his colourful cast of characters he brings all the richness of London's past unforgettably to life.

Ireland: Awakening

The second part of the Irish epic from the bestselling author of Sarum, Russka, London and Dublin.

The author bounds excitingly through Irish history...there is much action, some grinding poverty and violence, and an excitement that Rutherford keeps racing through 863 pages. His fictional characters become as vivid as the real life Irish heroes who stride the plot-cum-history

This is historical fiction and family saga on a grand scale

The characters are expertly sketched through the lens of love, loss, rebellion andcommerce...an absorbing and enjoyable read

Rutherford delivers on what is promised...(he) handles difficult material accurately and well...his ability to maintain a healthy narrative pace with an engaging popular style distinguishes Ireland Awakening as one of the better epic histprical novels

Breathtaking... an astounding achievement

Edward Rutherfurd has written about Dublin with love. It is an expertly researched and highly readable account of a place he has grown to know well'

Sublime talent ... this is history with a human face and a fanciful soul

Following the critically acclaimed success of Dublin, this riveting sequel takes the story of Ireland from the seventeenth century onwards, picking up at the Reformation, and with it, the devastating arrival of Oliver Cromwell. Cromwell heralds the inauguration of two hundred years of Protestant dominance, throughout which many of the Irish people were impoverished and dispossessed. Dublin is made a Protestant capital, and Catholics become an underclass. 
 
Set against the dramatic backdrop of Irish political history, this powerful saga is brought to its conclusion. Journeying through the centuries right the way up to the twentieth century's Easter Rising and Independence, passing through turbulent milestones such as The Year of the French, the Famine and The Home Rule Movement of Parnell along the way.

Foundation

Dublin

The new epic novel from the bestselling author of Sarum, Russka, London and The Forest

Expertly researched, full, undemanding and highly readable account of a place he has grown to know well

The author writes with a charm and an authority that comes from considerable research this is a really handsome book

The author bounds excitedly through Irish history, interweaving narrative with historical encounters. . . Rutherfurd keeps racing through the pages

Sublime talent. . . this is history with a human face and a fanciful soul

Edward Rutherfurd's great Irish epic reveals the story of the people of Ireland through the focal point of the island's capital city. The epic begins in pre-Christian Ireland during the reign of the fierce and powerful High Kings at Tara, with the tale of two lovers, the princely Conall and the ravishing Deirdre, whose travails echo the ancient Celtic legend of Cuchulainn. From this stirring beginning, Rutherfurd takes the reader on a graphically realised journey through the centuries. Through the interlocking stories of a powerfully-imagined cast of characters - druids and chieftains, monks and smugglers, merchants and mercenaries, noblewomen, rebels and cowards - we see Ireland through the lens of its greatest city.

The Forest

A magnificent, sweeping history in which Rutherfurd captures the essence of the English heartland.

A remarkable and ambitious novel whose central character is not a man or a woman, but the ancient New Forest of England. 
 
Few places lie closer to the heart of the nation's heritage than the New Forest. Now Edward Rutherfurd weaves its history and legends into compelling fiction, from the mysterious killing of King William Rufus to treachery and witchcraft, smuggling and poaching: this is an epic tale of well-born ladies, lowly woodsmen, sailors, merchants and Cistercian monks. 
 
The feuds, wars, loyalties and passions of generations reach their climax in a crime that shatters the decorous society of Jane Austen's Bath, and whose ramifications continue through the age of the Victorian railway builders to the ecologists of the present day.

Russka

Panoramic, sweeping, monumental, haunting: a story of four families which spans the centuries of Russia.

It is a series of ingeniously linked short novels, with a great deal of history painlessly delievered ... a very good read indeed

Even textured, with just the right amount of spice, it is the literary equivalent of hot cakes

Rewarding reading ... an engrossing story. The novel manages to capture and convey the vastness of Mother Russia, her story and her potential

What's impressive about Russka is Edward Rutherfurd's audacity - and his erudition

Impressive . . . Rutherfurd has indeed embraced all of Russia

Russka succeeds where [other books] of trendy Soviet-watching have failed ... Rutherfurd can take his place among an elite cadre of chroniclers such as Harold Lamb, Maurice Hindus and Henri Troyat

Fast moving ... Rutherfurd believes in adding color and adventure to facts that are exhaustively researched, making history palatable if not delicious

Sprawling ... Rutherfurd's close observation of Russia's religious and ethnic diversity gives this epic a distinctive flavor

In this vast and gorgeous tapestry of a novel, serf and master, Cossack and tsar, priest and Jew are brought together in a family saga which unrolls through centuries of history to reveal that most impenetrable and mysterious of lands - Russia.  Through the life of a little town east of Moscow in the Russian heartland, Edward Rutherfurd creates a sweeping family saga from the baffling contradictions of Russia's culture and her peoples - bleak yet exotic, brutal but romantic, land of ritual yet riddled with superstitious fears.  From Russia's dawn and the cruel Tatar invasions to Ivan the Terrible and the wild Cossacks, from Peter, Catherine and the days of War and Peace to the drama of the Revolution and the extraordinary events of today - here is Russia's story in a spellbinding novel - history recreated with breathtaking detail and passion.

Edward Rutherfurd

30th anniversary edition of the bestselling novel of England

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THE BESTSELLING HISTORICAL NOVEL 
***now with a new introduction from Edward Rutherfurd*** 
 
The towering story of five families through 100 centuries of turmoil, tyranny, passion and prosperity. 
 
A masterpiece of breathtaking scope, from the Ice Age to the present day, Sarum traces the entire turbulent course of English history through the epic saga of five families. 
 
The Wilsons and the Shockleys, locked in a cycle of revenge and rivalry for more than 400 years; the Masons, who pour their inspired love of stone into the creation of Stonehenge and Salisbury Cathedral; the Porters, descended from a young Roman soldier in exile; and the aristocratic Godfreys, who will fall to the very bottom of the social ladder before their fortunes revive. 
 
As their fates and fortunes intertwine over the course of the centuries, through struggle and adventure, their greater destinies offer a fascinating glimpse into the future.

Edward Rutherfurd

Sarum

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