Adam Swann Saga by R.F. Delderfield

-"Never saw a battle won by three generals", Adam said.-

Adam Swann Saga by R.F. Delderfield

1. God is an Englishman

2. Theirs was the Kingdom

3. Give us this day

Adam Swann Saga, which is how it is sometimes called, is a set of three novels written by R.F. Delderfield. These three delicious books are full of systematically developed characters and bits of common knowledge philosophy. 

Even though this is not a classical novel and it doesn't have the essence of a deeper philosophy, you just can't stop loving this story as it gives you a very detailed insight into the lives of the Swann family through the eyes of Swann family members from three generations. 

Where does this obsession come from in the literature? The necessity of investigating and developing such a complex story with so many characters and periods of the history? I have always supposed that it is connected with our deepest fear of the dark after the death, all the questioning about what is that we are leaving behind us in this world and was it worth it all the journey.

As Henrietta said: "The family is the only thing worth a row of beans in the end and that's about the only thing in life I learned..."

Adam Swann is a soldier tired of living as one, tired of India and battles. He spent more than a decade out of England, far away from his customs and people. He is lying on a battlefield, in the dirt. A battle has just finished and, just before losing consciousness, he sees a ruby necklace. There you have that special moment that doesn't happen in every man's life, a moment of change, a twist of destiny. 

Once recovered, Adam Swann leaves it all and goes back to England. From the ruby necklace he creates a dynasty that spreads onto the next two generations. 

In his mission there is a woman helping him wholeheartedly. Henrietta Swann is a daughter of an important cotton tradesman. She is only eighteen years old when she meets Adam on the moor, while running away from her father who wishes to marry her to a man she despises. 

Adam Swann launches a hauling company while she has her own mission. She decides to produce a family, a large family where every one of the members will have his own position in the new and complex world of the Industrial Revolution.

This is a Victorian novel, told in a very modern way where we meet all sorts of people, not just from London, but from every part of the country as Adam develops the hauling network. Injustice, children working in mines and chimneys, workers' strikes and low salaries before, during and after the Industrial Revolution. All this is mixed with the simplest of all ideas, that we are what our family is and what it will become.

"He realised that he would stay in the offensive to the day he died for that was the way he was made and a man never got far if he ran contrary to his nature."

God is an Englishman