The Painless Regency

ARABELLA (284 pp.)--Georgette Heyer --Putnam ($3).

It was no joke, in early 19th Century England, to be the eldest daughter of a poor Yorkshire vicar. Not even for a girl as lively, as pretty, as independent, as good and as beautiful as Arabella Tallant. Naturally she wanted to marry none of her awkward provincial suitors, so Mamma hustled her off to her wealthy London godmother who undertook to find Bella a rich husband. When the coach broke down on the way, Bella sought shelter at the nearest house, which turned out to be the country home of Mr. Robert Beaumaris, the handsomest, the most polished, the most excitingly built, the most sought after, and, of course, one of the richest catches in the realm.

It couldn't have ended any other way and Georgette (Friday's Child) Heyer's fans wouldn't want it to. Her so-called Regency novels (1811-1820), of which Arabella is the latest, are as slick, as painless and as inconsequential as the most languid hammock reader could wish, and they have helped to make her one of the bestselling writers in Britain today. Author Heyer has soaked up the speech, the manners, the pretentions and the social ambitions of her Regency smart set. She has been compared, say her publishers, to Jane Austen, and that fine writer is known to be Author Heyer's favorite. Austen readers will discover quickly that the author of Arabella has indeed gone to school to Jane, but not long enough.

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