God Is An Englishman - R. F. Delderfield

  
     I confess, I love a big book.  I love immersing myself in a big, sweeping story.  R. F. Delderfield's God Is An Englishman is just such a book.  I read Delderfield's Diana years ago, loved it, and have reread it several times over the years.  I found God Is An Englishman, the first in a trilogy, at a library book sale several years ago and finally picked it up earlier this week when I was in the mood for a huge story.  It didn't disappoint.
     This novel begins the Swann saga, the story of Adam Swann, a soldier tired of soldiering, who falls on a battlefield in India and finds himself staring a string of rubies in a shattered box.  They are his means of escaping to a new life.  He gives up the military tradition of his family, returns to England, and goes about establishing a carting business in the midst of railroad infested Victorian England.
     Along the way he meets Henrietta, the daughter of a mill owner who is fleeing an impending marriage arranged by her father.  He spots her, scantily clad, washing in a puddle.  He takes her with him and marries her.  What follows is the story of Adam's building his company, Swann-on-Wheels and their life together.  But the novel is much more.  It is peopled with wonderful characters - from Henrietta's domineering father and Adam's loving one, to the patchwork of people who make up his business empire that covers all of England.  It is a sweeping history of Victorian England as well as Swann's personal history. 
     The novel is a total 687 pages and manages to be impossible to put down.  Delderfield even manages to make the details of transportation schedules and maps of Swann's territories captivating.  Adam and Henrietta are wonderfully complex characters and their life together has ups and downs as they attempt to raise children and keep their relationship afloat in the midst of his complete dedication to his transportation business.  On top of all of that is a commentary on the ills of Victorian England.
     The ending, though not "happy ever after", is uplifting.  Adam Swann is a hero you can't help rooting for.  I'm definitely going to continue with the trilogy, Theirs Was the Kingdom and Give Us This Day.

~  Frances