Beryl Bainbridge
Encyclopedia
Dame Beryl Margaret Bainbridge, DBE
(21 November 19322 July 2010) was an English author
from Liverpool
. She was primarily known for her psychological novels
, often set amongst the English working classes. Bainbridge won the Whitbread Awards
prize for best novel in 1977
and 1996
; she was nominated five times for the Booker Prize. She was described in 2007 as "a national treasure". In 2008, The Times
newspaper named Bainbridge among their list of "The 50 greatest British writers
since 1945".
and raised in nearby Formby
. Her parents were Richard Bainbridge and Winifred Baines. Although she gave her date of birth in Who's Who and elsewhere as 21 November 1934, she was born in 1932 and her birth was registered in the first quarter of 1933. When German former prisoner of war Harry Arno Franz wrote to her in November 1947, he mentioned her 15th birthday.
She enjoyed writing, and by the age of 10 she was keeping a diary. She had elocution lessons and, when she was 11, appeared on the Northern Children's Hour radio show, alongside Billie Whitelaw
and Judith Chalmers
. Bainbridge was expelled from Merchant Taylors' Girls' School
(Crosby) because she was caught with a "dirty rhyme" (as she later described it), written by someone else, in her gymslip pocket. She then went on to study at Cone-Ripman School, Tring
, Hertfordshire
(now:Tring Park School for the Performing Arts http://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/dame-beryl-bainbridge-novelist-whose-work-began-rooted-in-autobiography-and-which-later-developed-to-encompass-historical-subjects-2017281.html, where she found she was good at history, English and art.
The summer she left school, she fell in love with a former German POW who was waiting to be repatriated. For the next six years, the couple corresponded and tried to get permission for the German man to return to Britain so that they could be married. But permission was denied and the relationship ended in 1953.
In the following year (1954), Beryl married artist
Austin Davies. The two divorced soon after, leaving Bainbridge a single mother of two children. She later had a third child by Alan Sharp
, the actress Rudi Davies. In 1958, she attempted suicide by putting her head in a gas oven. Bainbridge spent her early years working as an actress, and she appeared in one 1961 episode of the soap opera Coronation Street
playing an anti-nuclear protester.
To help fill her time, Bainbridge began to write, primarily based on incidents from her childhood. Her first novel, Harriet Said...
, was rejected by several publishers, one of whom found the central characters "repulsive almost beyond belief". It was eventually published in 1972, four years after her third novel (Another Part of the Wood). Her second and third novels were published (1967/68) and were received well by critics although they failed to earn much money. Seven more novels were written and published during the 1970s, of which the fifth, Injury Time
, was awarded the Whitbread prize for best novel in 1977.
In the late 1970s, she wrote a screenplay based on her novel Sweet William. The movie Sweet William
, starring Sam Waterston
, was released in 1979.
From 1980 onwards, eight more novels appeared. The 1989 novel, An Awfully Big Adventure
was adapted into a film in 1995
starring Alan Rickman
and Hugh Grant
.
In the 1990s, Bainbridge turned to historical fiction. These novels continued to be popular with critics, but this time, were also commercially successful. Among her historical fiction novels are Every Man for Himself
, about the 1912 Titanic disaster, for which Bainbridge won the 1996 Whitbread Awards
prize for best novel, and Master Georgie
, set during the Crimean War
, for which she won the 1998 James Tait Black Memorial Prize
for fiction. Her final novel, According to Queeney, is a fictionalized account of the last years of the life of Samuel Johnson
as seen through the eyes of Queeney Thrale
, eldest daughter of Henry
and Hester Thrale
; it received wide acclaim.
From the 1990s, Bainbridge also served as a theatre critic for the monthly magazine The Oldie
. Her reviews rarely contained negative content, and were usually published after the play had closed.
(DBE). In June 2001, Bainbridge was awarded an honorary degree
by the Open University
as Doctor of the University. In 2003, she was awarded the David Cohen Prize
for Literature together with Thom Gunn
. In 2005, the British Library
acquired many of Bainbridge's private letters and diaries. In 2011, she was posthumously awarded a special honour by the Booker Prize committee.
.
In 2009, Beryl Bainbridge donated the short story Goodnight Children, Everywhere to Oxfam's Ox-Tales project, four collections of UK stories written by 38 authors. Her story was published in the 'Air' collection. Bainbridge was the patron of the People's Book Prize.
Bainbridge was still working on The Girl in the Polka Dot Dress at the time of her death. The novel, which was based on a real-life journey Bainbridge made across America in 1968, is about the mystery girl reputed to have been involved in the assassination of Robert Kennedy. The novel was edited for publication by Brendan King and published in May 2011 by Little, Brown.
Order of the British Empire
The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is an order of chivalry established on 4 June 1917 by George V of the United Kingdom. The Order comprises five classes in civil and military divisions...
(21 November 19322 July 2010) was an English author
Author
An author is broadly defined as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created. Narrowly defined, an author is the originator of any written work.-Legal significance:...
from Liverpool
Liverpool
Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough of Merseyside, England, along the eastern side of the Mersey Estuary. It was founded as a borough in 1207 and was granted city status in 1880...
. She was primarily known for her psychological novels
Psychological novel
A psychological novel, also called psychological realism, is a work of prose fiction which places more than the usual amount of emphasis on interior characterization, and on the motives, circumstances, and internal action which springs from, and develops, external action...
, often set amongst the English working classes. Bainbridge won the Whitbread Awards
Costa Book Awards
The Costa Book Awards are a series of literary awards given to books by authors based in Great Britain and Ireland. They were known as the Whitbread Book Awards until 2005, after which Costa Coffee, a subsidiary of Whitbread, took over sponsorship....
prize for best novel in 1977
1977 Whitbread Awards
-References:*...
and 1996
1996 Whitbread Awards
-Children's Book:Winner:*Anne Fine, The Tulip TouchShortlist:*Russell Hoban, The Trokeville Way*Geraldine McCaughrean, Plundering Paradise*Philip Pullman, Clockwork or All Wound Up-First Novel:Winner:*John Lanchester, The Debt to Pleasure...
; she was nominated five times for the Booker Prize. She was described in 2007 as "a national treasure". In 2008, The Times
The Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
newspaper named Bainbridge among their list of "The 50 greatest British writers
British literature
British Literature refers to literature associated with the United Kingdom, Isle of Man and Channel Islands. By far the largest part of British literature is written in the English language, but there are bodies of written works in Latin, Welsh, Scottish Gaelic, Scots, Cornish, Manx, Jèrriais,...
since 1945".
Biography
Beryl Bainbridge was born in LiverpoolLiverpool
Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough of Merseyside, England, along the eastern side of the Mersey Estuary. It was founded as a borough in 1207 and was granted city status in 1880...
and raised in nearby Formby
Formby
Formby is a town and civil parish in the Metropolitan Borough of Sefton in Merseyside, England. It has a population of approximately 25,000....
. Her parents were Richard Bainbridge and Winifred Baines. Although she gave her date of birth in Who's Who and elsewhere as 21 November 1934, she was born in 1932 and her birth was registered in the first quarter of 1933. When German former prisoner of war Harry Arno Franz wrote to her in November 1947, he mentioned her 15th birthday.
She enjoyed writing, and by the age of 10 she was keeping a diary. She had elocution lessons and, when she was 11, appeared on the Northern Children's Hour radio show, alongside Billie Whitelaw
Billie Whitelaw
Billie Honor Whitelaw, CBE is an English actress. She worked in close collaboration with Irish playwright Samuel Beckett for 25 years and is regarded as one of the foremost interpreters of his works...
and Judith Chalmers
Judith Chalmers
Judith Chalmers OBE is an English television presenter who is best known for presenting the travel programme Wish You Were Here...? in the 1970s and 1980s, where she often appeared in a bikini.-Early life and career:...
. Bainbridge was expelled from Merchant Taylors' Girls' School
Merchant Taylors' Girls' School
Merchant Taylors' Girls' School, Crosby is a British selective independent girls' school, located in Great Crosby on Merseyside. As of 2007, it had around 620 pupils, ranging in age from 11 to 18...
(Crosby) because she was caught with a "dirty rhyme" (as she later described it), written by someone else, in her gymslip pocket. She then went on to study at Cone-Ripman School, Tring
Tring
Tring is a small market town and also a civil parish in the Chiltern Hills in Hertfordshire, England. Situated north-west of London and linked to London by the old Roman road of Akeman Street, by the modern A41, by the Grand Union Canal and by rail lines to Euston Station, Tring is now largely a...
, Hertfordshire
Hertfordshire
Hertfordshire is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in the East region of England. The county town is Hertford.The county is one of the Home Counties and lies inland, bordered by Greater London , Buckinghamshire , Bedfordshire , Cambridgeshire and...
(now:Tring Park School for the Performing Arts http://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/dame-beryl-bainbridge-novelist-whose-work-began-rooted-in-autobiography-and-which-later-developed-to-encompass-historical-subjects-2017281.html, where she found she was good at history, English and art.
The summer she left school, she fell in love with a former German POW who was waiting to be repatriated. For the next six years, the couple corresponded and tried to get permission for the German man to return to Britain so that they could be married. But permission was denied and the relationship ended in 1953.
In the following year (1954), Beryl married artist
Artist
An artist is a person engaged in one or more of any of a broad spectrum of activities related to creating art, practicing the arts and/or demonstrating an art. The common usage in both everyday speech and academic discourse is a practitioner in the visual arts only...
Austin Davies. The two divorced soon after, leaving Bainbridge a single mother of two children. She later had a third child by Alan Sharp
Alan Sharp
Alan Sharp a novelist and screenwriter. He published two novels in the 1960s, and since then has written the screenplays for about twenty films, mostly produced in the United States....
, the actress Rudi Davies. In 1958, she attempted suicide by putting her head in a gas oven. Bainbridge spent her early years working as an actress, and she appeared in one 1961 episode of the soap opera Coronation Street
Coronation Street
Coronation Street is a British soap opera set in Weatherfield, a fictional town in Greater Manchester based on Salford. Created by Tony Warren, Coronation Street was first broadcast on 9 December 1960...
playing an anti-nuclear protester.
To help fill her time, Bainbridge began to write, primarily based on incidents from her childhood. Her first novel, Harriet Said...
Harriet Said...
Harriet Said... was the first novel written by Beryl Bainbridge. Although completed in 1958 it was rejected by several publishers in the late fifties, one of whom wrote:The manuscript was thought lost but was found by one publisher, returned to the author and finally published by Duckworth in 1972,...
, was rejected by several publishers, one of whom found the central characters "repulsive almost beyond belief". It was eventually published in 1972, four years after her third novel (Another Part of the Wood). Her second and third novels were published (1967/68) and were received well by critics although they failed to earn much money. Seven more novels were written and published during the 1970s, of which the fifth, Injury Time
Injury Time (novel)
Injury Time is a novel by English author Beryl Bainbridge and first published in 1977 by Duckworth. It won the 1977 Whitbread Book of the Year Award.-Plot introduction:...
, was awarded the Whitbread prize for best novel in 1977.
In the late 1970s, she wrote a screenplay based on her novel Sweet William. The movie Sweet William
Sweet William (film)
Sweet William is a 1980 British drama film directed by Claude Whatham and starring Sam Waterston, Jenny Agutter, Geraldine James, Anna Massey, Arthur Lowe, Tim Pigott-Smith and Melvyn Bragg....
, starring Sam Waterston
Sam Waterston
Samuel Atkinson "Sam" Waterston is an American actor and occasional producer and director. Among other roles, he is noted for his Academy Award-nominated portrayal of Sydney Schanberg in 1984's The Killing Fields, and his Golden Globe- and Screen Actors Guild Award-winning portrayal of Jack McCoy...
, was released in 1979.
From 1980 onwards, eight more novels appeared. The 1989 novel, An Awfully Big Adventure
An Awfully Big Adventure (novel)
An Awfully Big Adventure is a novel written by Beryl Bainbridge. It was short listed for the Booker Prize in 1990 and adapted as a movie in 1995...
was adapted into a film in 1995
An Awfully Big Adventure
An Awfully Big Adventure is a 1995 British coming-of-age film directed by Mike Newell. The story focuses on a teenage girl who joins a seedy theatre troupe in Liverpool...
starring Alan Rickman
Alan Rickman
Alan Sidney Patrick Rickman is an English actor and theatre director. He is a renowned stage actor in modern and classical productions and a former member of the Royal Shakespeare Company...
and Hugh Grant
Hugh Grant
Hugh John Mungo Grant is an English actor and film producer. He has received a Golden Globe Award, a BAFTA, and an Honorary César. His films have earned more than $2.4 billion from 25 theatrical releases worldwide. Grant achieved international stardom after appearing in Richard Curtis's...
.
In the 1990s, Bainbridge turned to historical fiction. These novels continued to be popular with critics, but this time, were also commercially successful. Among her historical fiction novels are Every Man for Himself
Every Man for Himself (novel)
Every Man for Himself is a novel written by Beryl Bainbridge which was written in 1996 and is about the 1912 Titanic disaster. The novel won the Whitbread Prize, the Guardian Fiction Prize and was a nominee of The Booker Prize....
, about the 1912 Titanic disaster, for which Bainbridge won the 1996 Whitbread Awards
1996 Whitbread Awards
-Children's Book:Winner:*Anne Fine, The Tulip TouchShortlist:*Russell Hoban, The Trokeville Way*Geraldine McCaughrean, Plundering Paradise*Philip Pullman, Clockwork or All Wound Up-First Novel:Winner:*John Lanchester, The Debt to Pleasure...
prize for best novel, and Master Georgie
Master Georgie
Master Georgie is a 1998 historical novel by English novelist Beryl Bainbridge. It deals with the British experience of the Crimean War through the adventures of the eponymous central character George Hardy, who volunteers to work on the battlefields....
, set during the Crimean War
Crimean War
The Crimean War was a conflict fought between the Russian Empire and an alliance of the French Empire, the British Empire, the Ottoman Empire, and the Kingdom of Sardinia. The war was part of a long-running contest between the major European powers for influence over territories of the declining...
, for which she won the 1998 James Tait Black Memorial Prize
James Tait Black Memorial Prize
Founded in 1919, the James Tait Black Memorial Prizes are among the oldest and most prestigious book prizes awarded for literature written in the English language and are Britain's oldest literary awards...
for fiction. Her final novel, According to Queeney, is a fictionalized account of the last years of the life of Samuel Johnson
Samuel Johnson
Samuel Johnson , often referred to as Dr. Johnson, was an English author who made lasting contributions to English literature as a poet, essayist, moralist, literary critic, biographer, editor and lexicographer...
as seen through the eyes of Queeney Thrale
Hester Maria Elphinstone, Viscountess Keith
Hester Maria Elphinstone, Viscountess Keith born Hester Maria Thrale was a British literary correspondent and intellectual. She was the eldest child of Hester Thrale, diarist, author and confidante of Samuel Johnson, and Henry, a wealthy brewer and patron of the arts...
, eldest daughter of Henry
Henry Thrale
Henry Thrale was an 18th century English Member of Parliament and a close friend of Samuel Johnson. Like his father, he was the proprietor of the large London brewery, H. Thrale & Co....
and Hester Thrale
Hester Thrale
Hester Lynch Thrale was a British diarist, author, and patron of the arts. Her diaries and correspondence are an important source of information about Samuel Johnson and 18th-century life.-Biography:Thrale was born at Bodvel Hall, Caernarvonshire, Wales...
; it received wide acclaim.
From the 1990s, Bainbridge also served as a theatre critic for the monthly magazine The Oldie
The Oldie
The Oldie is a monthly magazine launched in 1992 by Richard Ingrams, who for 23 years was the editor of Private Eye. It carries general interest articles, humour and cartoons, and has an eclectic list of contributors, including James Le Fanu, John Sweeney, Thomas Stuttaford, Virginia Ironside,...
. Her reviews rarely contained negative content, and were usually published after the play had closed.
Honours and awards
In 2000, she was appointed Dame Commander of the Order of the British EmpireOrder of the British Empire
The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is an order of chivalry established on 4 June 1917 by George V of the United Kingdom. The Order comprises five classes in civil and military divisions...
(DBE). In June 2001, Bainbridge was awarded an honorary degree
Honorary degree
An honorary degree or a degree honoris causa is an academic degree for which a university has waived the usual requirements, such as matriculation, residence, study, and the passing of examinations...
by the Open University
Open University
The Open University is a distance learning and research university founded by Royal Charter in the United Kingdom...
as Doctor of the University. In 2003, she was awarded the David Cohen Prize
David Cohen Prize
The David Cohen Prize for Literature is a biennial British literary award given to a writer, novelist, short-story writer, poet, essayist or dramatist in recognition of an entire body of work, written in the English language. The prize is funded by the John S. Cohen Foundation and administered by...
for Literature together with Thom Gunn
Thom Gunn
Thom Gunn, born Thomson William Gunn , was an Anglo-American poet who was praised both for his early verses in England, where he was associated with The Movement and his later poetry in America, even after moving toward a looser, free-verse style...
. In 2005, the British Library
British Library
The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom, and is the world's largest library in terms of total number of items. The library is a major research library, holding over 150 million items from every country in the world, in virtually all known languages and in many formats,...
acquired many of Bainbridge's private letters and diaries. In 2011, she was posthumously awarded a special honour by the Booker Prize committee.
Last years
In 2003, Bainbridge's grandson Charlie Russell began filming a documentary, Beryl's Last Year, about her life. The documentary detailed her upbringing and her attempts to write a novel, Dear Brutus (which later became The Girl in the Polka Dot Dress); it was broadcast in the United Kingdom on 2 June 2007 on BBC FourBBC Four
BBC Four is a British television network operated by the British Broadcasting Corporation and available to digital television viewers on Freeview, IPTV, satellite and cable....
.
In 2009, Beryl Bainbridge donated the short story Goodnight Children, Everywhere to Oxfam's Ox-Tales project, four collections of UK stories written by 38 authors. Her story was published in the 'Air' collection. Bainbridge was the patron of the People's Book Prize.
Bainbridge was still working on The Girl in the Polka Dot Dress at the time of her death. The novel, which was based on a real-life journey Bainbridge made across America in 1968, is about the mystery girl reputed to have been involved in the assassination of Robert Kennedy. The novel was edited for publication by Brendan King and published in May 2011 by Little, Brown.
Death
Bainbridge died on 2 July 2010, aged 77 (born 21 November 1932), in a London hospital after her cancer recurred. Some reports say she was 75 years old due to confusion over her birth year.Novels
- A Weekend with Claude (1967)
- Another Part of the Wood (1968)
- Harriet Said...Harriet Said...Harriet Said... was the first novel written by Beryl Bainbridge. Although completed in 1958 it was rejected by several publishers in the late fifties, one of whom wrote:The manuscript was thought lost but was found by one publisher, returned to the author and finally published by Duckworth in 1972,...
(1972) - The DressmakerThe DressmakerThe Dressmaker is a novel written by Beryl Bainbridge. In 1973, it was nominated for the Booker Prize. Like many of Bainbridge's earlier works, the novel is semi-autobiographical. In particular, the story draws from an affair that she had with a soldier as a teenager...
(US title The Secret Glass) (1973) – Shortlisted for Booker Prize - The Bottle Factory OutingThe Bottle Factory OutingThe Bottle Factory Outing is a 1974 novel written by Beryl Bainbridge, it was shortlisted for the Booker Prize that year and won the Guardian Fiction Prize. It is also listed as one of the 100 greatest novels of all time by Robert McCrum of The Observer. The book was inspired by Beryl Bainbridge's...
(1974) – Shortlisted for Booker Prize, won the Guardian Fiction Prize - Sweet William (1975)
- A Quiet Life (1976)
- Injury TimeInjury Time (novel)Injury Time is a novel by English author Beryl Bainbridge and first published in 1977 by Duckworth. It won the 1977 Whitbread Book of the Year Award.-Plot introduction:...
(1977) - Young AdolfYoung AdolfYoung Adolf is a novel written by author Beryl Bainbridge, and first published in 1978 by Duckworth. Presented as biographical fiction, the book's main character is 23-year-old Adolf Hitler. Hitler visits relatives in Liverpool, where he gets into serious trouble with the English.-Further reading:*...
(1978) - Another Part of the Wood (revised edn) (1979)
- Winter Garden (1980)
- A Weekend with Claude (revised edn) (1981)
- Watson's Apology (1984)
- Filthy Lucre (written as a teenager in 1946 but published 1986)
- An Awfully Big AdventureAn Awfully Big Adventure (novel)An Awfully Big Adventure is a novel written by Beryl Bainbridge. It was short listed for the Booker Prize in 1990 and adapted as a movie in 1995...
(1989) – Shortlisted for Booker Prize - The Birthday BoysThe Birthday BoysThe Birthday Boys is a novel by Beryl Bainbridge. First published in 1991, this book tells the story of Captain Robert Scott's 1910-13 expedition to Antarctica.-Plot introduction:...
(1991) - Every Man for HimselfEvery Man for Himself (novel)Every Man for Himself is a novel written by Beryl Bainbridge which was written in 1996 and is about the 1912 Titanic disaster. The novel won the Whitbread Prize, the Guardian Fiction Prize and was a nominee of The Booker Prize....
(1996) – Shortlisted for Booker Prize - Master GeorgieMaster GeorgieMaster Georgie is a 1998 historical novel by English novelist Beryl Bainbridge. It deals with the British experience of the Crimean War through the adventures of the eponymous central character George Hardy, who volunteers to work on the battlefields....
(1998) – Shortlisted for Booker Prize - According to Queeney (2001)
- The Girl in the Polka-dot Dress (2011)
Short story collections
- Mum and Mr Armitage (1985)
- Collected Stories (1994)
- Northern Stories Vol. 5 with David Pownall ISBN-13: 9780946407972 (1994)
Non-fiction
- English Journey, or The Road to Milton Keynes (1984)
- Forever England: North and South (1987)
- Something Happened Yesterday (1993)
- Front Row: Evenings at the Theatre (2005)
External links
- Guardian interview
- "Author page" at The Guardian
- BBC audio interviews
- Beryl Bainbridge Criticism (Vol. 131)
- Beryl Bainbridge biography
- The Oldie Magazine
- Beryl Bainbridge, Mordant Novelist, Is Dead at 77, The New York Times, 2 July 2010
- Beryl Bainbridge: 1932 - 2010, Thought Catalog
- The Man Booker Prize: Special Prize for Beryl Bainbridge