New Releases by Beryl Bainbridge

A “dark and brilliant” story of the secrets, sex, and violence playing out behind the scenes of a repertory theater troupe in postwar Liverpool: “Never before has showbusiness been revealed as less romantic.” (Patrick Skene Catling, The Sunday Telegraph) Liverpool, 1950. Against the grimy backdrop of the gray postwar city, a shabby, scandal-steeped repertory theater company rehearses for their Christmas performance of Peter Pan. Treading the boards for the first time is sixteen-year-old Stella Bradshaw, ambitious, idealistic, and still overwhelmingly innocent. She falls hard for the rakish, monocled director, Meredith Potter, but, unable to attract his attentions—and not understanding why he’s spending quite so much time with their male colleagues—she turns to another to initiate her in the ways of love. Enter the celebrated P. L. O’Hara, their dashing leading man who’s nursing secrets of his own. When the curtain is up, fantastical entertainment abounds, but backstage a very different drama is playing out: a pitch-black comedy of indiscretion, intrigue, and eventual tragedy. Shortlisted for the Booker Prize, and dusted with that magical “air of Pinteresque menace and Sparkian malice [that] lingers around the margins of [all of Beryl Bainbridge’s] fiction,” (Michiko Katutani, The New York Times Book Review), An Awfully Big Adventure is one of the author’s very best—and best-loved—novels.

Three unforgettable novels from the “subversive and ever-mischievous imagination” of a celebrated British author and five-time Man Booker Prize nominee (The New York Times). With crisp prose and sardonic wit, Dame Beryl Bainbridge established a unique position for herself in the landscape of modern British literature. In the three novels collected here, Bainbridge explores disasters both epic and intimate, drawing inspiration from historical figures as well as her own life experiences to produce tightly woven tales that are at once ironic and honest, subtle and surprising. An Awfully Big Adventure: In postwar Liverpool, a teenage girl joins a local theater troupe and discovers the unflattering truths behind the gloss of adulthood. Shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, this atmospheric novel was adapted into a film starring Hugh Grant and Alan Rickman. “A former actress herself, Ms. Bainbridge chronicles the backstage antics of her fictional theater company with knowing aplomb.” —The New York Times The Birthday Boys: In 1910, Capt. Robert Falcon Scott led a harrowing race to the South Pole. With this imaginative yet historically accurate retelling of their famous and ill-fated mission, “Bainbridge has quite surpassed herself” (Financial Times). “Equally convincing in its evocations of the icy, unendurable landscape without, and the chilling interior landscapes of damaged souls.” —The Sunday Telegraph Master Georgie: The story of a British surgeon journeying toward the horrors of the Crimean War is told from the perspective of three companions who each believe they knew him best. This “stunning” novel was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize and won numerous awards (The New Yorker). “Accomplished with stupendous technical skill . . . a true novelist’s novel.” —The Guardian

This historical novel set during the eighteenth century recounts the tumultuous final years of famed English lexicographer and poet Samuel Johnson. In 1764, Britain’s greatest man of letters—the writer of the first English dictionary—shut himself in his room and refused to come out. Exhausted from working on an edition of Shakespeare’s plays, Samuel Johnson had fallen into a deep depression. He refused to eat and only opened his door to cry out incomprehensible phrases or empty his chamber pot. Finally, a priest was able to lure the scholar out of confinement, and, as he did, Johnson’s friend Henry Thrales arrived. Shocked by Johnson’s fit of madness, Thrales promptly whisked the man away for recuperation at a country mansion south of London. Thus began one of the happiest periods of Johnson’s life. At the Thrales residence in Streatham, Johnson regained his sanity and engaged in family life. He selected books for the estate’s library, joked around at parties, and became close to Thrales’s wife, Hester. But as the years passed, the affection between Johnson and Hester developed into a dark romantic affair, the Thrales’s daughter grew up and became aware of her mother’s emotional unavailability, and Johnson’s passions and eccentricities led to cumbersome moral and spiritual dilemmas. With chapter titles taken from entries in Johnson’s legendary dictionary, lauded British author Beryl Bainbridge paints a well-rounded portrait of an extraordinary man and his all-too-human experiences. Written from the perspective of the Thrales’s daughter, According to Queeney heightens fact with fiction, sincerity with irony, and humor with despair. Longlisted for the Man Booker Prize, it is a captivating account of the Georgian era, lending modern insight to British history.

Winner of the Whitbread Literary Award: A darkly humorous tale about a 1970s dinner party gone terribly wrong by one of Britain’s most renowned authors. Edward is normally a cautious man, especially when it comes to his mistress, Binny. But he feels bad that his lover never gets to enjoy the small intimacies of marriage, like sorting his socks or picking out gifts for his family. It is out of this guilt that Edward agrees to throw a dinner party with his “real friends” so Binny can feel more involved in his life and play hostess for a night. But there’s one catch: Edward has to be home no later than eleven to keep his wife from discovering his infidelity. The invitees to the secret soiree are a discreet couple: Simpson, an aspiring adulterer himself, and Muriel, a simultaneously disapproving and open-minded housewife. But as Binny haphazardly prepares the food, shoos her children out for the night, and frets about the aesthetics of her front lawn, the guests take an unintended detour through her run-down neighborhood. Edward, meanwhile, is silently panicking—and drinking. Simpson and Muriel finally arrive, and when everyone sits down to eat, it’s already a quarter past nine. Things get off to a decent, if awkward, start, until there’s a loud knock at the door. It’s Binny’s scandalously drunk old friend, Alma, who proceeds to vomit and pass out. But what should be the end of the evening is only the beginning. More unexpected guests arrive—this time it’s bank robbers with sawed-off shotguns. What follows is a chaotic and hilarious series of events, replete with a fake ping-pong match, a baby carriage full of cash, and a delirious getaway. Edward soon begins to worry less about getting home on time, and more about making it home at all. Equal parts dark comedy and thriller, Injury Time is a witty take on 1970s social mores by one of the most celebrated British authors, Beryl Bainbridge, who was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize five times. This ebook features an illustrated biography of Beryl Bainbridge including rare images from the author’s estate.

'Cunningly clever, wry, dry, sharply pointed' EVENING STANDARD 'Alarming humour and a powerful talent' DAILY TELEGRAPH 'Bainbridge is brilliant at combining established fact and compelling fiction' DAILY MAIL 'People came in and out, chairs were moved, dishes gathered up on trays, but it was happening at a great distance; she concentrated entirely on his pink face crowned with foppish curls.' Genteel, passive Ann works for the BBC in London and is engaged to a successful academic, fulfilling her snobbish mother's ambitions - more or less - while the Swinging Sixties happen elsewhere, to other people. Then she meets William: snub-nosed and generous, cunning and protean. She is first seduced, then transfixed, as William's past, present and future swirl around her overwhelmingly and Ann is herself irrevocably and irreparably changed.

The book that finally won Beryl Bainbridge a Booker prize: by popular vote the Best of Beryl.

'Extremely lively' TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT 'A work of art' SCOTSMAN 'Genius' SUNDAY TIMES An old snapshot shows a group of friends lounging in the sunshine, on a weekend in the country at the invitation of bearded, satyric Claude and his wife Julia. The girl in the centre is dreamy Lily, whose latest failed love affair forms the purpose of the weekend, as Lily's friends set out to help her ensnare an unwitting father for her unborn child. Next to her is Norman, a Marxist romantic hell-bent on seducing his milk-white hostess; behind them is old, persecuted Shebah; and slightly apart, the young man on whom all hopes are pinned: quiet, pleasant Edward. Told through the fractured narratives of Claude, Lily, Shebah and Norman, in Beryl Bainbridge's first published novel a darkly comic weekend of friendship and failure unravels.

'Harriet Said is a highly plotted horror tale that turns the "Obstinate Questionings" of puberty into deadly weapons' NEW YORK TIMES 'An extremely original and disconcerting story' DAILY TELEGRAPH 'A sharp, chilling novel . . . The ending has real shock effect' SUNDAY TIMES A girl returns from boarding school to her sleepy Merseyside hometown and waits to be reunited with her childhood friend, Harriet, chief architect of all their past mischief. She roams listlessly along the shoreline and the woods still pitted with wartime trenches and encounters 'the Tsar' - almost old, unhappily married, both dangerously fascinating and repulsive. Pretty, malevolent Harriet finally arrives - and over the course of the long holidays draws her friend into a scheme to beguile then humiliate the Tsar, with disastrous, shocking consequences. A gripping portrayal of adolescent transgression, Beryl Bainbridge's classic first novel remains as subversive today as when it was written.

Temporeiche Road Novel in den USA der Sixties Im Sommer '68 macht sich die Engländerin Rose auf nach Amerika, in ihrem Gepäck ein gepunktetes Kleid und ein Ticket ohne Rückfahrkarte. Gemeinsam mit dem zwielichtigen Harold ist sie auf der Suche nach Dr. Wheeler, einer mysteriösen Gestalt aus ihrer Kindheit. Wie Bonny und Clyde ziehen sie kreuz und quer durch ein von Rassenunruhen geschütteltes Amerika, rechts und links türmen sich die Leichen - bis sie schliesslich im Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles landen. Dort wartet Dr. Wheeler im Gefolge des Präsidentschaftskandidaten Robert Kennedy. Und dann fällt ein Schuss. In ihrem letzten Roman zeigt Beryl Bainbridge noch einmal ihr ganzes Können: Scharfsinnig und herrlich böse führt sie eine Nation am Wendepunkt zur Tragödie vor. Beryl Bainbridge, 1934 geboren, wuchs in der Nähe von Liverpool im Arbeitermilieu auf und begann in den Fünfzigerjahren mit dem Schreiben. Ihre insgesamt 18 Romane wurden vielfach ausgezeichnet; fünf Mal war sie für den Booker-Preis nominiert. 2000 wurde sie in den Adelsstand erhoben. Sie lebte zuletzt in London, wo sie im Juli 2010 verstarb. Ihr letzter Roman, 'Die Frau im gepunkteten Kleid', der nun in einem Dutzend Länder postum erscheint, gilt als eine ihrer besten Arbeiten.

Londres. Une petite usine de mise en bouteilles. Le patron, M. Paganotti, règne en bienfaiteur révéré sur une colonie d'italiens dévoués qu'il a fait venir de son village natal. Dans cette usine, deux Anglaises - Freda, l'héroïne du cruel fait divers que nous conte Beryl Bainbridge, et Brenda, sa terne protégée en rupture de conjugalité - ont été embauchées à l'étiquetage. A peine parachutée dans ce petit monde clos, Freda jette son dévolu sur le neveu du patron, l'insipide Vittorio, bellâtre sans caractère, et pour mieux le séduire, organise une sortie dominicale à la campagne. Mais, en ce sombre dimanche, la partie de campagne vire au pique-nique tragique...

Les bas-fonds de Liverpool à l'époque victorienne. George Hardy, personnage énigmatique, va se trouver lié par un secret honteux à trois personnages : Myrtle, la petite fille adoptée par sa famille, Pompey Jones, l'enfant des rues, et le Dr Potter, beau-frère de George. À travers les récits de chacun apparaît le destin hors du commun de " Georgie " qui mènera tous les protagonistes au cataclysme de la guerre de Crimée.

The Whitbread Novel of the Year, read by the winner of the Sony Radio Award.

The complete short stories--including six previously uncollected works and one novella--of award-winning British literary giant Beryl Bainbridge. From one of the United Kingdom's most famed female novelists come nineteen different takes on the often cruel, usually comic, and utterly strange realities of human life and imagination. From the collection Mum and Mr Armitage is the eponymous tale in which two pranksters at a holiday resort play "harmless" jokes on the people and livestock that surround them--until they must pay the price for taking the fun too far. In "The Longstop," unspoken familial information collides with a game of cricket, and in "People for Lunch," two lovers are ironically compelled to ruminate on the dilemmas of adultery. And among the previously uncollected work compiled here are "The Man from Wavertree" and "Poles Apart." The former is a quick look into the eccentric world of Rose and her tenant, Purdy, who is trying to sell his motorbike. The latter tells the story of a popular woman in her late seventies who tells a lie in an attempt to get out of a Christmas party invitation, only to find out her fib has come true. Collected Stories concludes with "Filthy Lucre," a Victorian melodrama that author Beryl Bainbridge wrote when she was only thirteen. In this precocious tale, a dying man asks a friend to take revenge on the family he thinks has cheated him out of his inheritance. What follows is a surprisingly mature and thoroughly sensational tale of murder, deception, love, and treasure islands. Called a "consummate storyteller" by the Sunday Times, Bainbridge was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize five times in her career, and is perhaps best known for her psychological novels The Bottle Factory Outing and Injury Time. However, her short fiction, hailed by the Times as "impressive," is equally masterful.

This funny, yet horrifying novel creates an atmosphere of impending doom with an ending specialising in successive denouements.

A Victorian marriage shockingly unravels in domestic tragedy in this acclaimed novel by the unpredictable Beryl Bainbridge.