The Beryl Bainbridge Omnibus: Harriet Said, The Dressmaker, The Bottle Factory Outing

London, England: Gerald Duckworth & Company. Near Fine in Very Good+ dust jacket. 1989. First Edition Thus; First Printing. Hardcover. First Edition Thus (1989) , so stated. Very Near Fine in Very Good+ to Near Fine DJ: The Book shows a touch of crimp to the heel of the backstrip and the faintest discolorations at the bottom edge of the text block; else flawless; the binding is square and secure; the text is clean. Free of creased or dog-eared pages in the text. Free of underlining, hi-lighting, notations, or marginalia. Free of any ownership names, dates, addresses, notations, inscriptions, stamps, plates, or labels. A handsome, nearly-new copy, structurally sound and tightly bound, showing very mild wear only. Bright and Clean. Corners sharp. Very close to "As New". The DJ shows some wrinkles at the heel of the backstrip and just a hint of same to the head; else flawless. Close to 'As New'. NOT a Remainder, Book-Club, or Ex-Library. 8vo. (8.75 X 5.65 x 1.65 Inches) . Language: English. Weight: 24 ounces. Hardback with DJ. Dame Beryl Bainbridge DBE (1932 – 2010) was primarily known for her works of psychological fiction, often macabre tales set among the English working class. She won the Whitbread Awards prize for best novel in 1977 and 1996, and was nominated five times for the Booker Prize. She was described in 2007 as a national treasure and, In 2008, The Times named Bainbridge on their list of the 50 greatest British writers since 1945. Bainbridge primarily based her early fiction on incidents from her childhood. Her first novel, Harriet Said..., was rejected by several publishers, one of whom found the central characters "repulsive almost beyond belief". It was eventually published in 1972, four years after her third novel, Another Part of the Wood. In 'Harriet Said...' 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, dangerously fascinating and repulsive. The Dressmaker takes place in Liverpool during the later part of World War II, focusing on a working-class household consisting of two sisters and their niece (one of whom is the dress-maker of the title). Their brother, Jack, a butcher, is their niece Rita's dad, and he figures prominently in this story, as well. Basically, the plot is centered what happens after an illiterate, amoral, Southern "white trash" "Yank" (strangely enough) named Ira walks into Rita's life. The resultant chaos and disruption this vulgar nonentity causes this repressed, stolid little working-class English family is massive. A great book that is well-written; it is extremely "English," in the same way that Josephine Tey and P. G. Wodehouse are. It effectively evokes the atmosphere of wartime England. 'The Bottle Factory Outing' is another minor masterpiece. The irony is heavy, as always. The characters are vivid and memorable, even those whom one would not consider to be vivid and memorable. Bainbridge brings even the palest, most dishwater types of personalities to life in a way that I've never seen an author do before. The story, as usual with Bainbridge is barely present through much of the book, not much happens. It's the people and their interactions that move the story more than any plot device. Then something happens that throws the banality of the characters' lives completely off course, and it's that 'something' - and their reaction to it, that crystallizess the story's theme and pulls the novel into unity. ; 8vo 8" - 9" tall; 475 pages .