In his foreword to the collected volume of The Herries Chronicle(1939), Sir Hugh Walpole wrote: "In the middle of the last war, sitting in the mud in trenches near the Carpathians, I comforted my soul with visions of an English Chronicle that would stretch, without break, from the days of Elizabeth to our modern time. The half of that ambition is accomplished, and I hope, if my life is spared, to fulfil the rest of it." The Bright Pavilions (1940) went some way towards fulfilling his intention. The story of Katherine Christian then begins where The Bright Pavilions left off, and Walpole worked on it until his death. The last page of manuscript is dated 24th May, 1941, and he died suddenly on 1st June. He did not leave any notes or other indications of the conclusion of the plot. However, whilst Katherine Christian was not quite finished, it was complete enough to be published as the last novel in the Herries Chronicle.