Booker Prize Foundation to honour Beryl Bainbridge

The Man Booker ‘Best of Beryl’

8 February 2011

The late, much-loved novelist Dame Beryl Bainbridge was shortlisted five times for the Booker Prize, but never actually won. Despite many other literary accolades, the press's phrase - the ‘Booker bridesmaid' - stuck. In her honour, the Booker Prize Foundation has created a special prize, The Man Booker Best of Beryl, and asks the public to consider which of her five shortlisted novels deserves the accolade.

No author has ever been shortlisted as many times for the prize. Her shortlisted books were The Dressmaker (1973); The Bottle Factory Outing (1974); An Awfully Big Adventure (1990); Every Man for Himself (1996) and Master Georgie (1998) all of which are now published in paperback by Abacus.

Ion Trewin, Literary Director of the Man Booker Prizes, comments, "Dame Beryl was a very gracious non-winner and no Man Booker dinner was complete without her. She may have been the eternal Booker Bridesmaid but, with this special prize created in her honour, we are delighted to be able finally to crown her a Booker Bride by letting the public choose what they believe to be the best of her books."

The public are invited to vote via an online poll here on the Man Booker website - which opens today, Tuesday 8 February at 07:30 GMT - for their favourite of Dame Beryl's five shortlisted novels. The winning title will be announced in mid April 2011.

Beryl's daughter, Jojo Davies comments, ‘Beryl did want to win the Booker very much despite her protests to the contrary. We are glad she is finally able to become the bride, no longer the bridesmaid.'

Beryl Bainbridge was an author and actress. She wrote seventeen novels, two travel books and five plays for stage and television. Her novel Master Georgie won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize and Every Man for Himself was awarded the Whitbread Novel of the Year Prize. She won the Guardian Fiction Prize with The Bottle Factory Outing and the Whitbread Prize with Injury Time. The Bottle Factory Outing, Sweet William and The Dressmaker have all been adapted for film, as was An Awfully Big Adventure, which starred Hugh Grant and Alan Rickman. Her final novel, The Girl in the Polka Dot Dress, will be published by Little, Brown in June. She died in July last year.

You can vote here for the Man Booker Best of Beryl Prize from 07:30 GMT, Tuesday 8 February.

Hilary Mantel and Alvaro Ribeiro on Beryl Bainbridge in our Perspective section.