Jordan had left extensive notes for what he imagined to be the last volume, but they were so complete that instead of just one book, Sanderson wrote three: The Gathering Storm (2009), Towers of Midnight (2010), and A Memory of Light (2013). In 2006 the author was diagnosed with a rare blood disease, and he died on September 16th, 2007, at the age of 58.Īfter his death, author Brandon Sanderson, famous for his Mistborn science fiction series, was contacted by Harriet McDougal, wife and editor of Robert Jordan, to complete the series. Jordan wrote the first eleven books in the series: The Eye of the World(1990), The Great Hunt (1990), The Dragon Reborn (1991), The Shadow Rising (1992), The Fires of Heaven (1993), Lord of Chaos (1994), A Crown of Swords (1996), T he Path of Daggers (1998), Winter’s Heart (2000), Crossroads of Twilight (2003) and Knife of Dreams (2005). The Eye of the World cover by Darrell K Sweet The Eye of the World was later published as two separate books to target the young adult market: From the Two Rivers and To the Blight, in 2002. The hardcover and paperback quickly sold through the initial 40,000 print run.

Robert Jordan (pen name for James Oliver Rigney, Jr.) began writing the first novel, The Eye of the World, in 1984, and it was published on January 15th, 1990.

Partly inspired by Tolstoy’s War and Peace, each book is a lengthy tome that also includes elements of European and Asian mythology. Although it was originally planned as a six-book series, Robert Jordan’s epic The Wheel of Time series grew to fourteen expansive novels published from 1990 through 2013, extending years after Jordan’s death.

The wheel of time book 12