God Is an Englishman (Swann Family Saga, 1) Paperback – June 1, 2009

God is an Englishman is Victorian historical fiction at its best - I recommend it to anyone who has an interest in the world changing developments in commerce and industry in England in the mid/late 19th Century. I have always been fascinated by tales of the Industrial Revolution when English entrepreneurs, inventors and innovators changed life from an a rural/agricultural system to a modern industrial society in a matter of generations.After a military career, Adam Swann returns to England in 1858 with an intense ambition to build his fortune in the fast changing and extremely competitive world of Victorian commerce. Swann soon meets his soul-mate, Henrietta, the high-spirited daughter of a local mill owner and they set out to build a family business under the Swann name. Along the way they share challenges, setbacks and eventually an immense fortune.As now, the secret of Swann's success is building an efficient and competitive business that is ahead of its time and is essential to the success of others. Swann sees that while railways are a fundamental part of the game-changing industrial revolution, they cannot always provide door to door delivery. He sets up an extensive and complex country-wide network of horse drawn transportation to take materials and goods between the railhead and factories up and down the country, sometimes on appalling roads and gradients.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.This is a fascinating and outstanding novel about exciting times in economic and social development throughout Victorian England. The next novels in the series - - Theirs Was the Kingdom (Swann Family Saga) and Give Us This Day (God Is an Englishman) - - bring the younger Swanns into the business and they face the next challenges as the face of road freight transport changes from horse drawn to motorised delivery.The Swann family saga is only one of several important English family sagas written by Delderfield, including The Horseman Riding By and To Serve Them All Our Days, both of which became popular BBC mini-series.This is a beloved novel by one of my favourite authors. I first read this book (the first in the Swann family saga trilogy) in the UK the early 1970's when it was first published. I read it again with continued enjoyment over 30 years later and was delighted to see it featured recently as a Kindle Daily Deal so I can now keep a copy with me at all times.

I first read this book decades ago and reread and here I am 70+ and reading it again, it takes time to get used to the wordy, at times, descriptions but oh so worth it. I get lost in the time frame, my favorite era to read about. I have recommended this book and author many times.

With the success of Downton, these British sagas hold an allure again. I read Delderfield in the 70's & decided to ere visit his works. This did not disappoint , so if you have not read this classic, it is worth the return to the age of British expansion when hope was prevalent and life showed promise. This book is a nice antidote to the dismal 21st century news.

I wish I were sufficiently gifted as a writer to do justice to this book. My wife exposed me to Delderfield when we watched the BBC series, To Serve Them All My Days. This book takes the reader along to share the life of an Englishman who leaves the British army to participate in England's industrial revolution. Through fortune, and talent, our protagonist Charles Swann builds the 19th century equivalent of FedEx. I wish I knew better the map of England so that I could appreciate the level of detail in the story. The other delightful part of this book is the woman who becomes Adam's wife, Henrietta Rawlinson. We see a delightful young woman, who like her husband, matures during the course of the story. Throughout, the characters are interesting and well-drawn. The stories of each are engaging and show the author's wonderful talent to paint pictures and draw out human nature. Although written in 1970, the author has an early appreciation of feminism and the role that women would play in the new social and economic order. Great book!!

Fine prose fiction. Story compelling, setting accurate and clear. You can’t miss with this author. Try To Serve Them All My Days.

Take your time and enjoy the prose. It will be worth it to get to the second and third books.

I have owned Theirs Was the Kingdom for many years,and finally pulled it off the shelf to read. In doing so, I discovered that God is an Englishman was the first book, so I ordered it. Loved the characters and the story of the Swann family. Can't wait to now start reading Theirs Was the Kingdom!

This is the first volume of an epic saga about a British entrepreneur who realizes that there is money to be made in horse drawn distribution in the middle of the 19th century despite the growth of the railway system. The story of how Adam Swan builds that business is fascinating and presented in elaborate detail. At the same time, the book deals with romantic topics but in a way that seems very old fashioned and censored. Lots of odd, symbolic language that somewhat detracts from the overall commercial theme of the book. Those parts make the book a little embarrassing for an old fashioned male reader to be caught with; somewhat like reading part of a Har___ novel from a bygone era. At times the book's treatment of women is patronizing although arguably it does show women in unusual, for the 1860s, management positions. For me, I wish the author had stuck to the story of the development of the enterprise and left the romantic parts to other authors. Mind all of it is very clean, nothing in this book that anyone could object to.