The Ring

Ten writers trace a gold ring engraved with the name and symbol of Fortuna as it passes from owner to owner across more than two thousand years. The sequence begins in the Roman Republic and continues through Roman Britain, medieval warfare, the Thirty Years’ War, eighteenth-century Scotland, the Gilded Age and modern New York. Each possessor believes the ring may influence fortune, but its apparent favour repeatedly gives way to loss, violence or betrayal.

Alistair Forrest contributes Wheel of Fortune, set in Rome on the Ides of March in 44 BC, where possession of the ring moves between men caught in the assassination of Julius Caesar. The remaining stories reinterpret the same object through different historical genres and narrative voices, creating a linked anthology rather than a conventional novel. The contributors donated their work, with proceeds supporting The Reading Agency.