The novelist Beryl Bainbridge, who died last July aged 77, was shortlisted for the Booker Prize five times during her career — but never won. Now the Booker Foundation has created a special prize in her honour — the Man Booker Best of Beryl. Via an online poll on the Man Booker website, the public are invited to vote for their favourite novel from the five shortlisted titles — The Dressmaker (1973); The Bottle Factory Outing (1974); An Awfully Big Adventure (1990); Every Man for Himself (1996) and Master Georgie (1998). The winning novel, announced in mid April, will receive the new accolade.
No author has ever been shortlisted so many times for the prize, leading the press to nickname her “the Booker bridesmaid”, though she won numerous other literary awards.
Bainbridge wrote occasionally for the New Statesman, largely to the magazine’s Diary column. Here is an excerpt from 2003, in which she describes “the day a florist’s van caused mayhem”, resulting in a crash and unfortunate mouth injuries:
On Saturday I went out to dinner. My host is always so generous with the whisky that I felt I must buy him a bottle. Coming down the alleyway near my home, I met mad Dickie. He’s an educated man and kindly, but he does like his heroin or whatever it is and is sometimes a little the worse for wear. He insisted on escorting me to the off-licence, which was nice of him, but we were in Camden Town and no sooner had we emerged on to the High Street than several of his fellow sufferers greeted him with delight. They came into the off-licence with me; we were all cut and bruised about the face. I shall never be able to go to that particular shop again.
Born in Liverpool, Bainbridge started her career as an actress and began writing after the birth of her three children. She won the Whitbread Prize twice as well as the David Cohen and James Tait Black Memorial Prize. In 2000 she was made a dame.
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