Settlers: The Emigrant Novels Book 3 (The Emigrant Novels, Book 3)

• Last Letter Home: The Emigrant Novels Book 4 (The Emigrant Novels / Vilhelm Moberg, Book 4)
• Unto a Good Land (The Emigrants, Book II)
• Emigrants: The Emigrant Novels Book 1 (The Emigrant Novels / Vilhelm Moberg, Book 1)
• A History of the Swedish People: Volume II: From Renaissance to Revolution
• A History of the Swedish People: Volume 1: From Prehistory to the Renaissance

In the first volume, "The Emigrants", the author detailed the emigration of a Swedish family to the New World, grounding it in the reasons for the exodus of so many Swedes from their mother country in the middle of the 19th century. The focus of the first book in this four part opus is on the family, relatives, and friends of Karl Oscar Nilsson, a peasant farmer who unceasingly worked his farm, only to find that, no matter what he did, he could not progress and would continue to live on the cusp of total poverty. The focus of the first book is on their life in Sweden. Gathering up family and friends of the family, the Nilssons decide to take the monumental step of making a fresh start by emigrating to the new world, specifically the United States of America.

The second volume, "Unto a Good Land", focuses on the arrival of the Nilsson family and friends in the United States of America. It details their journey from New York, a journey that was to take them across the Midwest by rail, steamer, and foot, to arrive in the wilds of what would one day be the State of Minnesota. It is in this wilderness that the Nilsson family and friends would homestead and struggle to make a new home. The author regales the reader with the travails this hardy group of settlers would encounter in their efforts to create by the sweat of their brow a new home in the wilderness. The early struggles of the Nilsson family to succeed in what was an unknown frontier is engagingly chronicled.

In "The Settlers", the author continues the story of the Nilsson family and friends. It is the story of a family who struggled to prevail in Minnesota, an alien land of harsh, inhospitable winters and scorching summers. The book continues to chronicle their lives and their adaptation to the adopted country that they would forever call home. It tells the story of the divided Nilsson brothers, each of whom would forge a path alien to the other. The author hones in on the fact that the early settlers were subject to being taken advantage of by the unscrupulous. He highlights the mass migration of disaffected Swedes to Minnesota and details their contribution to the prosperity of that part of the country. The author shows how these early Swedish settlers consolidated themselves into a thriving, bustling community, despite the obstacles and hardships that were to be their lot in the early years of their struggle to make the new land yield to their will.

I have enjoyed the first, second, and third volumes so much that I look forward to continuing this journey with the Nilssons by reading the last remaining volume. Well-written and vibrant with period detail, this is a book that those who enjoy historical fiction will appreciate.

This book is the third in the Emigrants quadrilogy, and continues to demonstrate the same excellence shown by the others. Vilhelm Moberg was a great writer, and these books are amongst the best that I have ever read. The characters are powerfully written, seeming quite real; this was one of the authors many strengths. This is a wonderful introduction to the settler experience, and I recommend it wholeheartedly.

[For those of you with young children, I would like to recommend the Kirsten books in the American Girls series. Written for young readers (primarily girls), it tells the story of a Swedish family that immigrates to Minnesota in 1854.]