Books: Sharp-Eyed Yorkshirewoman

LOVE AND MONEY (256 pp.)—Phyllis Bentley—Macmi/lan ($3).

Much modern fiction is literature of escape—from class, race, creed, country, or even the sex in which the writer was born. The disadvantage of the escapee is that he is obliged to change his clothes to prevent detection. Novelist Phyllis Bentley has chosen to wear the sober broadcloth of her native Yorkshire, to remain and write about what she knows—the Yorkshire Tyke (English slang for York-shireman). In 19 books during the past 35 years she has "celebrated her chosen slab of earth—Yorkshire's West Riding.

In the seven...