God Is an Englishman (The Swann Family Saga: Volume 1)

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The novels are concerned with the portrayal 'ordinary, decent folk', striving to 'get on' and become a success, whilst remaining true to themselves and their values. These values include patriotism, decency, integrity, thrift, industriousness, success gained through service and hard work. The novels, now described as 'old fashioned', celebrate English history, humanity, and liberalism while demonstrating little patience with entrenched class differences and snobbery." Stella was married at the tail end of God is an Englishman to a neighbor, the son of a minor lord from a family interested in horse racing. Stella too is interested in horses. But having gotten married, she finds the family to be exceedingly strange and needs to be rescued from them after less than a year. You can see just how strange they are from the fact that she is able to get the marriage annulled. Afterward, it is up to her to find her real love. The Adventures of Ben Gunn (a companion novel to Stevenson's Treasure Island telling of events which occurred before that book begins) The Australian people: biography of a nation. Sydney, New South Wales: Angus and Robertson. 1972. p.285. ISBN 978-0-207-12845-5. Confessions of a new boy. Ringwood, Victoria: Viking (published 1985). 1986. p.372. ISBN 978-0-14-008754-3.

A Horseman Riding By (published in the United States as two novels, Long Summer Day and Post of Honor) In 2016, The Saturday Paper and Aēsop jointly announced the creation of the Horne Prize for essay writing. [12]In this book, we get much more than the adventures of Adam and his wife, Henrietta. There are the ongoing incidents in the life of the various elements of “the network” – the regional departments of Swann-on-Wheels. And there is change in the company itself, as Adam transforms it from a single proprietorship to a closely-held company. And there is the drama of trying to groom his second son, George, to succeed him as head of the company. This includes the vagaries of George’s love life, which leads rather abruptly to his traveling to Europe to study the practices of other similar companies. And this, in turn, leads to George’s almost accidentally discovering his real love – a motorized vehicle. Horne, Donald; Horne, Myfanwy (2007). Dying: a memoir. Ringwood, Victoria: Viking. p.265. ISBN 978-0-670-07102-9. Delderfield's first published play was produced at Birmingham Repertory Theatre in 1936; the Birmingham Post wrote "more please, Mr Delderfield". [2] :250 One of his plays, Worm's Eye View, had a run at the Whitehall Theatre in London, and was filmed in 1951 with Diana Dors. Following service in the RAF during World War II, he resumed his literary career, while also running an antiques business near Budleigh Salterton, Devon. Having begun with drama, Delderfield decided to switch to writing novels in the 1950s. His first novel, Seven Men of Gascony, a tale of French soldiers in the Napoleonic Wars, was published in 1949 by Werner Laurie. [3] In 1950 he featured in a BBC Newsreel clip of the short-lived The Axminster and Lyme Regis Clarion in Lyme Regis. [4] Autobiography [ edit ] i feel like i uncovered a gem in this book--i get the sense it was the 1970s equivalent of the da vinci code (without all the quasi spiritual nonsense of course). though it got a bit tedious in parts, overall it was very engaging and fun to read.

My favorite part of the story is Adam's own heart for the downtrodden. As an army officer, he witnessed devastation to the civilian populations of the Crimea and India, which is a major reason why he decides to quit the army. (This isn't dwelt upon too much thankfully.) He is sensitive to the suffering of his fellow human beings, whether that be the factory hands in cotton mills or the street orphans in London. When Adam starts his business, his early employees are the street kids whom Saul Keate and his wife have been housing and feeding. He pays a fair wage and treats each man in his employ as a human being. He knows names, histories, and steps in himself when there is a problem or dispute. This certainly works well as a narrative device, but it's clear that Adam really cares. A major dispute and turning point between Adam and Henrietta comes about because of the suffering of a chimney sweep. Henrietta, as well as being a wife and mother to an ever increasing brood of small Swanns, is the financial wizard who helps Adam to succeed. While the business is essentially a family one, much of its success is due to finding the right staff in the right place and giving them every incentive to perform and develop the business.

Distinctions

In a sense you are an outsider, my dear chap,' he said, 'and that's the reason I grabbed you the moment you showed up. You're the bridge, don't you see? A passage over a generation gap, and it isn't the conventional generation gap we all have to cross if we know our business properly. Your gap, caused by the war, is semi permanent. It might take twenty years to close.' The intelligent tourist. McMahons Point, New South Wales: Margaret Gee Publishing (published 1992). 1993. p.415. ISBN 978-1-875574-16-2. Adam Swann and the young wife he as good as abducted seem at first like cardboard characters, Adam only a symbol of honorable and aggressive business enterprise, Henrietta only a symbol of innocence, ignorance and frivolity. But Mr. Delderfield is too sure a professional novelist to leave them in such‐ rudimentary con dition. As his sprawling tale marches briskly ahead Adam and Henrietta change and grow, becoming different, wiser and better people than they were when first introduced. One may not believe every surprising episode in “God Is an Eng lishman,” but one learns to be lieve in Adam and Henrietta. They are not notably interest ing or likable people; but they are real, and Adam in par ticular seems just the sort of self‐confident, intelligent gam bler who, no doubt, created many of the business empires of the last century. This is a feminist novel for the 1970’s: it has strong, capable women, but they are more than willing to subjugate themselves if they can only find a man who is yet stronger and more capable. While Adam and Henrietta’s relationship is less passionate than that of the Poldarks, it has some interesting twists. I thought their wedding night was very well written: Henrietta naive but determined, and both of them pleasantly surprised. The childbirth scene, not so much - not sure the author had ever actually talked to anybody who had given birth. The next two years brought the Swann's name notoriety through employee activities. Hamlet Ratcliff was informed that his job was in jeopardy. Hamlet set about catching a circus lion that had gotten loose while being transported by a different company whose driver was drunk. His catching the lion increased the popularity of the line in his area and kept him from being replaced.

Adam Swann is a very interesting and smart character and his aims to build his own place in the world are a kind of microcosm of how industry and entrepreneurism changed the world in the mid-1800s. His feisty wife, Henrietta, adds another dimension to both this man and the story, and Delderfield peoples the novel with a supporting cast that feels real and substantial. While there are sections in which the building of Swann-on-Wheels, Adam’s business, can become a little laborious, the understanding of it is essential to understanding the characters and their lives. Sam Rawlinson had grown into a position of wealth and owned of a mill. His wife had died giving birth to Henrietta and he valued her as a possession to be used to gain more wealth. Henrietta was 18 and refused to be forced into a marriage in exchange for land. The striking mill workers had caused a riot and set the mill on fire. Henrietta used the distraction as an opportunity to run away from home. A storm came up and her horse threw her and ran off. She found a hut outside of town and used it to get out of the rain.

I want to start off by saying that this book took me a week to read but I loved every minute of it. I read a few smaller books in between, but I just adored spending so much time in Victorian England. I felt like I lived in Adam and Henrietta’s world and could understand their issues and problems but also cheer for them to push forward, move past whatever problems they were having, and succeed at everything. This is the kind of book that becomes a favorite, at least for me, because I love huge complex stories like this. Theirs was the Kingdom is book II in what is commonly called the "God is an Englishmen" trilogy. Book I is the story of a guy who quits the army to seek his fortune and start a family at the dawn of the industrial revolution of Victorian England. Book II is the continuation of him and his large family, with each child now spawning a subthread. As I mentioned before, the whole book takes place in the 1860s, so there are some fascinating explorations of the historical/economic phenomenon that were taking place at the time. For example, the NW region of Adam's business, Swann on Wheels, gets its start hauling for cotton mills in Lancashire, but when the U.S. Civil War breaks out, the whole region is affected and Adam puts the wagons to a clever and heartwarming use. Another discussion through the book is the adaptation of both the culture and the business world to the expanding reach of railroads. There is one character in particular who remembers the glory days of coaching and coaching inns and hates the incursion of the railroad. His story has a poignant intersection with the railroad that brought me to tears.