The Great Level

Stella Tillyard Chatto & Windus €21.60 Jan Brunt, the subtleminded narrator of this fine historical novel, is a Dutch engineer in the mid-17th century. His work takes him first to East Anglia, in England draining marshland, then across the seas to New Amsterdam, the city that is to become New York. Historian Tillyard has a real feeling for the period and captures the pioneering spirit of the times, bristling with new challenges. But it is Jan’s love for Eliza, a simple English girl he first meets in the Fens, that elicits the best and tenderest writing in the book. His understated emotions are extraordinarily poignant.