Sarum (novel)

Sarum
Sarum first edition cover.
Author(s)	Edward Rutherfurd
Country	United Kingdom
Language	English
Genre(s)	Historical novel
Publisher	Century Hutchinson
Publication date	May 7, 1987
Media type	Print (Hardback & Paperback)
Pages	1145 pp (first edition)
ISBN	0-7126-1447-8
OCLC Number	15591802

Sarum (latterly titled Sarum: The Novel of England) is a work of historical fiction by Edward Rutherfurd, first published in 1987. It tells the story of England through the tales of several families in and around the English city of Salisbury, stretching from prehistoric times to 1985.

Characters

The main families of Sarum include:

• Forest
• Wilson
• Porters
• Mason
• Shockley
• Godfrey

This includes a Carpenter family protagonists, who are forced to flee Sarum after trying to kill a main character.

Setting

The story covers major points of British history. The following listing of the chapters parallels major periods and events :

Old Sarum

• Journey to Sarum (prehistoric Britain)
• The Barrow (the arrival of agriculture in Britain)
• The Henge (the building of Stonehenge)
• Sorviodunum (the arrival of the Romans)
• Twilight (the fall of the Roman Empire/arrival of the Saxons)
• The Two Rivers (arrival of the Vikings/uniting of England)
• The Castle (Norman England)

New Sarum

• The Founding (the founding of New Sarum/building of Salisbury Cathedral)
• The Death (the Black Death)
• The Rose (the Rule of Lancaster)
• A Journey From Sarum
• New World (The Reformation)
• The Unrest (The English Civil War)
• The Calm (the eighteenth century)
• Boney (the Battle of Trafalgar)
• Empire (the British Empire)
• The Henge II (World War I/the selling of Stonehenge)
• The Encampment (World War II)
• The Spire (Salisbury in 1985)