Long Summer Day

R. F. Delderfield was not on my radar at all but I dove into Long Summer Day for the BAC. It was just a wonderful, sprawling novel about England at the turn of the century. Paul Craddock is home from the Boer War, healing from a leg injury, and wondering what to do with himself when his father's partner in the scrap iron business arrives to take charge. Craddock ends up as Squire of an estate in rural Devonshire. From there, life unfolds for Paul and the families that work the land. The story basically moves from the coronation of Edward VII to that of George V. I thoroughly enjoyed it and am looking forward to the next two books in the series as my own long summer days spread out.

I loved the first book I read by Delderfield and I loved this one. It is book 1 in a series titled A Horseman Riding By. This is one of those books where nothing happens and yet everything happens. It is about England's Long Summer of the Edwardian Era. A man with resources purchases a great estate and runs it like he is the aristocratic landlord of yesteryear. But, behind the scenes things are changing, so while the reader sees England at its height, there is also the foreshadowing of things to come, including the breakup of the Empire. One of the most fascinating stories was the struggle for women's suffrage that is going on in the background of the entire novel. If you loved Downtown Abby, this is the novel for you. Highly recommended.

Long Summer Day by RF Delderfield is the first of a 3-book series known collectively as A Horseman Riding By. I saw the original BBC Masterpiece Theatre 1978 version and decided I would like to read the book.

We follow the Squire of Shallowford, Paul Craddock from his recovery of injuries sustained in the Boer War to the purchase of his Devon Estate.

The book is lyrical, long and lovingly written, something to be savoured, not rushed through. It borders on being a pleasantly romantic portrayal of pastoral England. Delderfield's writing is brilliant in many places but occasionally I found myself impatient with the slow pace. Other times, I was thoroughly immersed in the stories of the Squire, his marital circumstances, acquaintances, show more servants and the many tenant farmers. The characters are very well drawn, so that even with a huge cast of Valley dwellers, you aren't left feeling confused. Partly, this is because the author uses repetition widely in his narrative. I appreciated this fact, but other readers may chafe at this.

Squire Craddock is a young man with old fashioned ideas and a well defined sense of justice. We have an in depth view of the every day workings of the estate, the transition to the modern era of motor cars and telephones, politics and the suffragettes.

I will certainly want to continue the saga of Shallowford in the 2 following books. While not exactly fine literature, anyone drawn to England in the late 19th and early 20th Centuries will find much to enjoy in Long Summer Day. show less

I've read a few Delderfield works at this point in life. To Serve Them All My Days, the God is an Englishman trilogy, Napoleon's Marshalls. But it has been a few years.

I don't remember if those works had two annoying things I found in this work that I wish to mention and then move on. Long Paragraphs, sometimes 3 pages long. This is hard on the eyes. And something the writer can't address any longer. The other was that a paragraph would start with dialogue from one speaker and end with dialogue from another. Please, break up the dialogue with paragraphs. (Perhaps if ever released again an editor would do their job and edit the work.)

Now to the meat of it. The story is good. The character development is good though sometimes a little to show more pat. We need a character as a plot device and so we have that trait emerge. We see the world of Pre Great War England and the skirmishing of Tory (Conservative) and Unionist (Labour)

We see the treatment of Suffragettes. The change of Motor and Phone beginning just as we saw Trains in God is an Englishman. Sometimes we spend unnecessary pages having the same rundown of what is happening to many characters in the book that we had a chapter before. Delderfield uses devices such as a gull flying in search of food all throughout the valley so we can see what each character is up to every few years and realize that we have read that a few dozen pages before.

So why read this book. One would think it is dated in the 21st century, but it addresses a time a century ago, and one that the writer is familiar enough with to give us a good insight into. One that has things we should take a peak at.

It is a historical, and certainly in some of the characterizations we see an older, male hand trying to write the mind of a teenager, which does not work (Delderfields worldly wise Grace is too worldly wise and her adult assumptions should be changed for simpler emotional and youthful ones IMO.) But as mentioned, worth a read, and perhaps one day worth a reread immediately following a reread of God is an Englishman. show less

This book strikes a deep-down chord for me. The descriptions of life in the early 20th century are fascinating and enlightening, even if a little romantic.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book and was desperate to get the sequel!