"All the World" (1919) takes place in the aftermath of the Great War. The soldiers are back but they are struggling to settle down again, and so are the women who worked so hard during the war as well. One Sunday, after Dr. Ward’s sermon, something happens that will turn the life in his town upside down.

Charles Monroe Sheldon (1857-1946) was a Congregationalist minister from New York and a leader of the Social Gospel movement, a Protestant group that applied Christian ethics to social issues. In 1896, he published his novel "In His Steps," which is a fictionalisation of the themes he discussed in his sermons. It asked the question: "What would you Jesus Do?", a way of thinking that became popular in the 20th century. Sheldon was also a vegetarian and an animal rights defender.