The iron bridge
By: [by] David Morse.
Edition: 1st ed.
Publisher: Harcourt Brace
Published: 1998
Place of publication: New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 436
Subjects: Bridges, Iron and steel -- Design and construction -- Fiction; Americans -- England -- Fiction; Time travel -- Fiction; Iron Bridge (Coalbrookdale, England) -- Fiction; Coalbrookdale (England) -- Fiction
Description: In Shropshire, England, 1773, important men are planning the world's first iron bridge, to be built across the Severn River at Coalbrookdale. John Wilkinson, armsmaker, wants the bridge: let it serve as a symbol and advertisement for iron. Abraham Darby III, owner of the largest iron-works in England and a Quaker, wants the bridge: let it further his family name. Thomas Farnolls Pritchard, architect, wants the bridge: let it be the capstone of his career.

Maggie Foster, too, wants the bridge built - but built wrong this time. If she can get Darby to use a different design, the bridge will topple in the next earthquake. Iron will be discredited, the Industrial Revolution postponed. Then history may take a path better than the one that has made a ruin of the world she comes from. Maggie was sent by Ecosophia, a desperate commune in the United States, in the Southwest, in the year 2043.