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Dame Beryl Bainbridge is one of the greatest living British novelists. Author of seventeen novels, two travel books and five plays for both stage and television, five of her novels have been shortlisted for the Booker Prize, most recently Master Georgie, which went on to win the James Tait Black Memorial Prize and the WHSmith Literary Award. She has also been awarded the Whitbread Novel of the Year Prize twice for Injury Time and Every Man for Himself.
Born in Liverpool and raised in nearby Formby, Bainbridge spent her early years working as an actress, leaving the theatre to have her first child. Her first novel, Harriet Said... was written around this time, although it was to be her third published novel, rejected by several publishers who found it “indecent”. Her first published works were Another Part of the Wood (1968) and An Awfully Big Adventure (1970), with many of her early novels retellings of her Liverpool childhood. A number of her books have been adapted for film, most notably An Awfully Big Adventure, which is set in provincial theatre and was made into a film by Mike Newell in 1995, starring Alan Rickman and Hugh Grant. She later turned to more historical themes, such as the Scott Expedition in The Birthday Boys (1991), a retelling of the Titanic story in Every Man for Himself (1996), and Master Georgie (1998), which follows Liverpudlians in the Crimean War. Bainbridge’s no-word-wasted style and tight plotting have won her critical acclaim and a committed following.
Her novel According to Queeney (2001), a fictionalized account of the last years of the life of Samuel Johnson, received considerable acclaim. Dame Beryl is currently working on her next novel. Dame Beryl is currently working on her next novel, The Girl in the Polka Dot Dress, which is due out in 2008.
Recent books:
The Girl in the Polka Dot Dress (Little, Brown: due 2008)
According to Queeney (Little, Brown: 2001)
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