In the past two years, Anita Brookner's novels The Debut and Look at Me have delighted readers here and in Great Britain. With Providence,… she effectively claims her territory as a writer. "Territory" may, however, be too large a word to suit these politely agoraphobic works. With several other British novelists of past and present, Anita Brookner shares a love of order and pattern, a discreet sense of humor, and a piquant awareness of manners, as well as a rather small canvas. These are novels for a disciplined sensibility—not the excesses of the groaning board but the light sufficiency of the luncheon table; not Wagner crashing through the symphony hall but Brahms suffusing the chamber with rational poignancy.

Jane Austen's world comes congenially to mind, although we would not immediately group Anita Brookner's heroines with Emma Woodhouse—"handsome, clever, and rich," secure in her provenance and her...