Beryl Bainbridge
born Nov. 21, 1934, Liverpool, Eng.
died July 2, 2010, London
English novelist known for her
psychologically astute portrayals of
lower-middle-class English life.
Bainbridge grew up in a small town near
Liverpool and began a theatrical career at
an early age. She acted in various repertory
theatres for many years before she published
her first novel. Her work often presents in
a comical yet macabre manner the
destructiveness latent in ordinary
situations. In A Weekend with Claud (1967),
an experimental novel, the titular hero is a
predatory, violent man. Another Part of the
Wood (1968) concerns a child’s death
resulting from adult neglect. Harriet Said
(1972) deals with two teenage girls who
seduce a man and murder his wife. Other
novels in this vein are The Bottle Factory
Outing (1974), Sweet William (1975), A Quiet
Life (1976), and Injury Time (1977). In
Young Adolf (1978), Bainbridge imagines a
visit Adolf Hitler might have paid to a
relative living in England before World War
I. Winter Garden (1980) is a mystery about
an English artist who disappears on a visit
to the Soviet Union. Subsequent novels
include An Awfully Big Adventure (1989;
filmed 1995), The Birthday Boys (1991),
Every Man for Himself (1996), Master Georgie
(1998), and According to Queeney (2001).
In addition to her fiction, Bainbridge
wrote several television plays, and she
published work that underscores what she
considered the cultural and ethical
disintegration of contemporary life. English
Journey; or, The Road to Milton Keynes
(1984), is a diary she kept in 1983 during
the filming of a television series for the
British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC). She
also published Front Row: Evenings at the
Theatre: Pieces from the Oldie (2005), a
collection of reviews and other writings on
theatre. Bainbridge was made Dame Commander
of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) in
2000.
