World's End (1940 novel)

Infobox Book |
name = World's End
title_orig =
translator =


image_caption =
author = Upton Sinclair
illustrator =
cover_artist =
country = flagicon|United States United States
language = English
series = Lanny Budd
genre = Historical novel
publisher = Viking Press and T. Werner Laurie
release_date = 1940
media_type = Print (Hardcover and Paperback)
pages =
isbn = NA
preceded_by =
followed_by = Between Two Worlds

"World's End" is the first novel in Upton Sinclair's Lanny Budd series. First published in 1940, the story covers the period from 1913 to 1919.

Plot summary

We first meet Lanny Budd as a teenage student at a private school in Germany which focuses on music and dance. Lanny, born in Switzerland, is the grandson of the president of Budd Gunmakers in New England. His father is the European sales representative, and his mother, his father's former mistress (also from the U.S.) is still supported in grand style on the French Riviera. The story follows Lanny, his English schoolmate Rick, and his German friend Kurt through World War I, and then the aftermath as Lanny joins the staff of the U.S. delegation to the negotiation of the Treaty of Versailles. The plot and characters are constructed to reveal historical facts as well as the ideological tensions at the time (as seen through the eyes of the author).

Through the story we see Lanny troubled by knowing his two closest friends are involved on opposite sides of a war, and later by the failure of the negotiations at Versailles to get past the bitterness of both French and British people against Germany.