Beryl Bainbridge
The Dressmaker (1973); The Bottle Factory Outing (1974); An Awfully Big Adventure (1989); Every Man for Himself (1996); Master Georgie (1998) | |
---|---|
Spouse |
Austin Davies
(m. 1954; div. 1959) |
Partner | Alan Sharp |
Children | 3, including Rudi Davies |
Dame Beryl Margaret Bainbridge
Biography
Early life
Beryl Margaret Bainbridge was born in Liverpool's Allerton suburb on 21 November 1932,[5] the daughter of Winifred Baines and Richard Bainbridge. She grew up in the nearby town of Formby. Although she often gave her date of birth as 21 November 1934, she was born in 1932 and her birth was registered in the first quarter of 1933.[6] When German former prisoner of war Harry Arno Franz wrote to her in November 1947, he mentioned her 15th birthday.[7]
Bainbridge enjoyed writing, and by the age of 10 she was keeping a diary.[7] She had elocution lessons and, when she was 11, appeared on the Northern Children's Hour radio show, alongside Billie Whitelaw and Judith Chalmers. She was expelled from Merchant Taylors' Girls' School in Great Crosby when she was caught with a "dirty rhyme" (as she later described it) written by someone else in her gymslip pocket.[8] She then went on to study at Cone-Ripman School in Tring (now the Tring Park School for the Performing Arts),[9] where she found she was good at history, English, and art. The summer she left school, she fell in love with former German prisoner of war Harry Arno Franz who was waiting to be repatriated. For the next six years, the couple corresponded and tried to get permission for him to return to Britain so that they could marry, but permission was denied and the relationship ended in 1953.[7]
Subsequent years
In the following year (1954), Bainbridge married artist Austin Davies. In 1958, she attempted suicide by putting her head in a gas oven.[3] The two divorced soon after, leaving Bainbridge a single mother of two children. 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. She later had a third child by Alan Sharp, the actress Rudi Davies (born 1965).[7] Sharp, a Scotsman, was at the start of his career as novelist and screenwriter; Bainbridge would later let it be thought that he was her second husband; in truth, they never married but the relationship encouraged her on her way to fiction.
To help fill her time, Bainbridge began to write, primarily based on incidents from her childhood. Her first novel,
In the late 1970s, she wrote a screenplay based on her novel Sweet William. The resulting film, starring Sam Waterston, was released in 1980.[12]
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.
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.[8] A collection of reviews 1992-2002 were published in the book "Front Row: Evenings at the Theatre". The introduction described her theatrical experience, from winning a talent competition to assistant stage manager in Liverpool to occasional acting roles.
Final 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 Four.
In 2009, 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
Death
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/2e/Beryl_Bainbridge_Grave.jpg/220px-Beryl_Bainbridge_Grave.jpg)
Bainbridge had been a heavy smoker for much of her life.[16] Her cancer returned and she died on 2 July 2010, aged 77, in a London hospital.[17] Confusion over her birth year resulted in some reports giving her age at death as 75.[18] She is buried in Highgate Cemetery.
Honours and awards
In 2000, Bainbridge was appointed Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE). In June 2001, she was awarded an honorary degree by the Open University as Doctor of the University.[19] 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.[7]
Following Bainbridge's death in 2010, the Man Booker Prize set up a "Best of Beryl" prize, the nominees being her books that had previously been shortlisted:
Bibliography
Novels
- A Weekend with Claude (1967)
- Another Part of the Wood (1968)
- Harriet Said... (1972)
- The Dressmaker(US title The Secret Glass) (1973) – shortlisted for Booker Prize
- The Bottle Factory Outing (1974) – shortlisted for Booker Prize, won the Guardian Fiction Prize
- Sweet William (1975)
- A Quiet Life (1976)
- Injury Time (1977) - winner, Whitbread Prize
- Young Adolf (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 Adventure (1989) – shortlisted for Booker Prize
- The Birthday Boys (1991)
- Every Man for Himself (1996) – shortlisted for Booker Prize, winner of the Whitbread Prize
- Master Georgie (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 (co-editor with David Pownall) ISBN 978-0-946407-97-2(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)
References
- ^ Frontispiece of Injury Time by Beryl Bainbridge,1991 Penguin edition.
- Wroe, Nicholas (1 June 2002), "Filling in the gaps" (Beryl Bainbridge profile), The Guardian.
- ^ a b Higgins, Charlotte (25 May 2007), "Bainbridge is seen through a grandson's eyes", The Guardian, London, England, archived from the original on 7 July 2012, retrieved 17 January 2008
- ^ "The 50 greatest British writers since 1945". The Times. 5 January 2008. Retrieved 19 February 2010.
- doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/102494. (Subscription or UK public library membershiprequired.)
- ^ "Index entry". FreeBMD. ONS. Retrieved 5 July 2020.
- ^ a b c d e Hastings, Chris (12 October 2005), "Beryl Bainbridge, a German prisoner of war and a secret love affair", The Daily Telegraph, London, retrieved 17 November 2008 [dead link]
- ^ a b c d Preston, John (24 October 2005), "Every story tells a picture", Daily Telegraph, retrieved 17 January 2008 [dead link]
- ^ Levy, Paul (3 July 2010). "Dame Beryl Bainbridge: Novelist whose work began rooted in autobiography and which later developed to encompass historical subjects". The Independent.
- ^ Wroe, Nicholas (31 May 2002). "Filling in the Gaps". The Guardian.
- ^ Brown, Craig (4 November 1978), "Beryl Bainbridge: an ideal writer's childhood", The Times, p. 14.
- ^ Canby, Vincent (18 June 1982), "Sweet William (1979)", The New York Times, retrieved 17 January 2008
- ^ Sisman, Adam (26 August 2001). "Madness and the mistress". The Observer. Retrieved 8 May 2013.
- ^ Bradbury, Lorna (7 May 2010). "Beryl Bainbridge last masterpiece of an obsessive". Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 10 May 2011.
- ^ King, Brendan (24 February 2016). "Beryl Bainbridge. Love by All Sorts of Means: A Biography". Bloomsbury. Archived from the original on 16 June 2017. Retrieved 9 February 2023.
- ^ See The Economist obituary, 17 July 2010, p. 90.
- ^ "Dame Beryl Bainbridge, novelist, died on July 2nd, aged 77". The Economist. 15 July 2010. Retrieved 25 December 2010.
- ^ "Dame Beryl Bainbridge dies at 75". BBC News. 2 July 2010. Retrieved 2 July 2010.
- ^ "Dame Beryl Bainbridge, Doctor of the University" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 13 December 2013. Retrieved 4 August 2013.
- ^ "The Booker Prize and the best of Beryl Bainbridge". The Booker Prizes. 26 May 2022. Retrieved 8 February 2022.
- ^ "The Man Booker 'Best of Beryl'". The Man Booker Prizes. 8 February 2011. Archived from the original on 21 May 2011. Retrieved 8 February 2023.
- ^ Brown, Mark (8 February 2023). "Beryl Bainbridge earns a Booker at last". The Guardian.
- ^ Van Nguyen, Dean (18 January 2015). "Mark Knopfler unveils new song 'Beryl'". NME. Retrieved 20 January 2015.
- ^ "A Blue Plaque for Beryl". National Museums Liverpool.
External links
- Shusha Guppy (Winter 2000). "Beryl Bainbridge, The Art of Fiction No. 164". The Paris Review. Winter 2000 (157).
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/fa/Wikiquote-logo.svg/34px-Wikiquote-logo.svg.png)
- Beryl Bainbridge at IMDb
- Guardian interview
- "Author page" at The Guardian
- Beryl Bainbridge Criticism (Vol. 131)
- Beryl Bainbridge biography
- Dame Beryl Bainbridge at British Council: Literature
- 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
- Oxford Dictionary of National Biography audio podcast Archived 1 November 2016 at the Wayback Machine –- issued in January 2014 (find under literary listings)