Dame Beryl Margaret Bainbridge (November 21, 1932 – July 2, 2010) was an English writer. She is best known for writing psychological fiction, which often includes dark or scary stories about people in the English working class. She won the Whitbread Award for Best Novel in 1977 and 1996. She was also nominated five times for the Booker Prize. In 2007, she was called a national treasure. In 2008, The Times included her in their list of the "50 greatest British writers since 1945."

Biography

Beryl Margaret Bainbridge was born on November 21, 1932, in the Allerton suburb of Liverpool, to Winifred Baines and Richard Bainbridge. She grew up in the nearby town of Formby. Although she sometimes said she was born on November 21, 1934, her actual birth was recorded in the first quarter of 1933. In November 1947, Harry Arno Franz, a former German prisoner of war, wrote to her and mentioned her 15th birthday.

Bainbridge loved writing and kept a diary by age 10. She took speech lessons and appeared on the Northern Children's Hour radio show at age 11, alongside Billie Whitelaw and Judith Chalmers. She was removed from Merchant Taylors' Girls' School in Great Crosby after being found with a "dirty rhyme" written by someone else in her gym uniform. She later studied at Cone-Ripman School in Tring (now Tring Park School for the Performing Arts), where she excelled in history, English, and art. During the summer she left school, she fell in love with Harry Arno Franz, a former German prisoner of war waiting to return to Britain. The couple wrote letters for six years, trying to gain permission for him to return so they could marry. Permission was denied, and their relationship ended in 1953.

In 1954, Bainbridge married artist Austin Davies. In 1958, she tried to take her own life by putting her head in a gas oven. The couple divorced soon after, leaving Bainbridge as a single mother of two children. She worked as an actress in her early years, appearing in one 1961 episode of the soap opera Coronation Street as an anti-nuclear protester. She later had a third child with Alan Sharp, the actor Rudi Davies (born in 1965). Sharp, a Scottish writer, was at the start of his career; Bainbridge later suggested he was her second husband, though they never married. Their relationship inspired her to write fiction.

To stay busy, Bainbridge began writing stories based on her childhood experiences. Her first novel, Harriet Said…, was rejected by several publishers, one of whom called the main characters "repulsive almost beyond belief." It was finally published in 1972, four years after her third novel, Another Part of the Wood. Her second and third novels, published in 1967 and 1968, were praised by critics but did not earn much money. She wrote and published seven more novels during the 1970s, including Injury Time, which won the Whitbread Prize for best novel in 1977.

In the late 1970s, Bainbridge wrote a screenplay based on her novel Sweet William. The film, starring Sam Waterston, was released in 1980.

From 1980 onward, Bainbridge published eight more novels. Her 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 were well-received by critics and became commercially successful. Among her works are Every Man for Himself, about the 1912 Titanic disaster, which won the 1996 Whitbread Prize for best novel, and Master Georgie, set during the Crimean War, which won the 1998 James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction. Her final novel, According to Queeney, is a fictional account of the last years of Samuel Johnson’s life, viewed through the eyes of Queeney Thrale, the eldest daughter of Henry and Hester Thrale. The Observer called the novel "highly intelligent, sophisticated, and entertaining."

From the 1990s, Bainbridge also worked as a theater critic for The Oldie magazine. Her reviews were usually published after plays had closed and rarely contained negative comments. A collection of her reviews from 1992 to 2002 was published in the book Front Row: Evenings at the Theatre. The introduction described her journey from winning a talent competition in Liverpool to working as an assistant stage manager and taking on occasional acting roles.

In 2003, Bainbridge’s grandson, Charlie Russell, began filming a documentary titled Beryl's Last Year, which explored her life. The documentary covered her childhood and her efforts to write Dear Brutus (later published as The Girl in the Polka Dot Dress). It aired in the United Kingdom on BBC Four on June 2, 2007.

In 2009, Bainbridge donated the short story Goodnight Children, Everywhere to Oxfam’s Ox-Tales project, a collection of UK stories by 38 authors. Her story was included in the Air collection. Bainbridge was also the patron of the People’s Book Prize.

At the time of her death, Bainbridge was still working on The Girl in the Polka Dot Dress. The novel, based on a real journey she took across America in 1968, tells the story of a mysterious girl linked to the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy. The book was published in May 2011 by Little, Brown. It was edited by Brendan King, whose biography Beryl Bainbridge: Love by All Sorts of Means was published in September 2016.

Death

Bainbridge smoked heavily for most of her life. Her cancer returned, and she passed away on July 2, 2010, at the age of 77, in a hospital in London. Some reports stated she was 75 years old at the time of her death because there was confusion about the year she was born. She is buried in Highgate Cemetery.

Honours and awards

In 2000, Bainbridge was named Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE). In June 2001, she received an honorary degree from the Open University as Doctor of the University. In 2003, she was given the David Cohen Prize for Literature along with Thom Gunn. In 2005, the British Library received many of Bainbridge's private letters and diaries.

After Bainbridge died in 2010, the Man Booker Prize created a "Best of Beryl" award. Books shortlisted for this prize included The Dressmaker, The Bottle Factory Outing, An Awfully Big Adventure, Every Man for Himself, and Master Georgie. Through a public vote, Master Georgie was selected as the winner. In 2011, Bainbridge was honored posthumously by the Booker Prize committee.

Mark Knopfler included a song titled "Beryl" on his 2015 album Tracker, which celebrated Bainbridge and her posthumous award. In 2016, a Blue Plaque was placed at the house in Formby where Bainbridge lived during her childhood.