{"product_id":"an-awfully-big-adventure-9781961341920","title":"An Awfully Big Adventure","description":"\u003cp\u003eAgainst the grimy backdrop of the grey postwar city, a shabby, scandal-steeped repertory theatre company rehearses for their Christmas performance of Peter Pan.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eA blackly comic story of the secrets, sex, and violence behind the curtain of a repertory theatre's postwar production of \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003ePeter Pan\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cb\u003e: its 'close observation and hilarity are underlain by a sense of tragedy as deep as any in fiction.' \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003e(The Times)\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eLiverpool, 1950. Against the grimy backdrop of the grey postwar city, a shabby, scandal-steeped repertory theatre 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 colleague to initiate her into the ways of love. Enter the celebrated P. L. O'Hara, a 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.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eShortlisted 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 Kakutani, \u003ci\u003eThe New York Times Book Review\u003c\/i\u003e), \u003ci\u003eAn Awfully Big Adventure\u003c\/i\u003e is one of the author's very best  and best-loved   novels.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ch4\u003eDetails\u003c\/h4\u003e\u003cp\u003eISBN13: 9781961341920\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eFormat: Paperback \/ softback\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eNumber of Pages: 216\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eEdition: \u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003ePublication Date: 01 Jul 2026\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003ePublisher: McNally Jackson Books\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003ePublication City, Country: United States\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eDimensions (cm): 21.6(H)x12.7(L)\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eWeight (gm): \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ch4\u003eAuthor Biography\u003c\/h4\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eDame Beryl Bainbridge\u003c\/b\u003e (1934-2010) was born in Liverpool, where she began her adult life working as an actress  an experience she drew on later when writing \u003ci\u003eAn Awfully Big Adventure\u003c\/i\u003e, later made into a 1995 film, directed by Mike Newell, starring Hugh Grant and Alan Rickman. Five of her seventeen novels were shortlisted for the Booker Prize, which garnered her the nickname 'the Booker Bridesmaid'; in 2011, a special Man Booker 'Best-of Beryl' Prize was awarded in her honour. \u003ci\u003eMaster Georgie\u003c\/i\u003e (1998) won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize, and both \u003ci\u003eInjury Time \u003c\/i\u003e(1977) and \u003ci\u003eEvery Man for Himself \u003c\/i\u003e(1996) were awarded the Whitbread Novel of the Year Prize. Also a talented painter, she lived for many years in a house crammed with eccentric Victoriania in London's Camden Town, where visitors were forced to squeeze past the stuffed buffalo in her entrance hall.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eYiyun Li\u003c\/b\u003e is the author of several works of fiction, including most recently \u003ci\u003eWednesday's Child\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eThe Book of Goose\u003c\/i\u003e, and \u003ci\u003eWhere Reasons End\u003c\/i\u003e, and the memoirs \u003ci\u003eThings in Nature Merely Grow\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eDear Friend, from My Life I Write to You in Your Life\u003c\/i\u003e. She is the recipient of many awards, including a PEN\/Faulkner Award, a PEN\/Malamud Award, a PEN\/Hemingway Award, a PEN\/Jean Stein Book Award, a MacArthur Fellowship, and a Windham-Campbell Prize, and she was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. Her work has appeared in \u003ci\u003eThe New Yorker\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eA Public Space\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eThe Best American Short Stories\u003c\/i\u003e, and \u003ci\u003eThe PEN\/O. Henry Prize Stories\u003c\/i\u003e, among other publications. She teaches at Princeton University and lives in Princeton, New Jersey.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ch4\u003eReviews\u003c\/h4\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"The backstage world of a small regional theater--crowded with ego, activity and illusion--provides rich material for the comic novelist . . . [An] erudite, deliciously dark narrative about growing older but not quite wiser . . . Much of the novel's humor derives from the contrast between a richly staged production of \u003ci\u003ePeter Pan\u003c\/i\u003e--the ultimate ode to childhood self-discovery--and the racy affairs of the crew that brings it to life . . . Stella's arrival on the scene upsets the delicate balance of this little community, causing missed cues, injuries, canceled performances and worse. Her unsteady ascent toward womanhood coincides, hysterically, with the theater company's descent into chaos.\"\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e--Donna Sanders, \u003ci\u003eThe Wall Street Journal\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e\"Wickedly diverting . . . Poignant, arresting and often funny, an accumulation of such small, telling details effectively recreates the atmosphere of Liverpool in the mid-'50s: a gritty, exhausted city pocked by bomb damage, only just beginning to emerge from the anguish of the war . . . Succinct and tart, \u003ci\u003eAn Awfully Big Adventure\u003c\/i\u003e never takes itself too seriously, the ironic intent underlined by a title suggesting a bedtime story for grown-ups. Gleefully exploiting the limits of her material, Bainbridge manages, against all the odds, to recycle stock characters and situations into a sophisticated entertainment.\"\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e--Elaine Kendall, \u003ci\u003eLos Angeles Times\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e\"Frequent Booker-shortlistee Beryl Bainbridge was the author of many brilliant novels filled with clever, witty characters and keen observations on human foibles, In her most famous novel (which is also a dark little film starring Alan Rickman and Hugh Grant), a shabby, scandal-steeped repertory theater company in Liverpool rehearses for their Christmas performance of \u003ci\u003e Peter Pan \u003c\/i\u003e . . . This reissue, with an introduction by Yiyun Li, is a great introduction to the author.\" \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e--Emily Firetog, \u003ci\u003eLiterary Hub\u003c\/i\u003e - Lit Hub's Most Anticipated Books of 2026\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e\"Her genius lies in that territory which she has made entirely her own, in the comic evocation of the flat and mundane life against which her characters are in perpetual and ineffectual revolt.\"\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e--Peter Ackroyd, \u003ci\u003eThe Sunday Times\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e\"An air of Pinteresque menace and Sparkian malice lingers around the margins of her fiction . . . The prose in these books is dry, pointed and idiomatic; Ms. Bainbridge possesses a peculiarly acute ear for the desultory chatter of people who have given up expecting very much out of life . . . A former actress herself, Ms. Bainbridge chronicles the backstage antics of her fictional theater company with knowing aplomb. She captures its air of shabby amateurism with a couple of flicks of the wrist, conjures up its petty in-fighting with a few bright lines of dialogue.\"\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e--Michiko Kakutani, \u003ci\u003eThe New York Times Book Review\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e\"A vicious little masterpiece . . . The gods of writing mysteriously smiled on \u003ci\u003eAn Awfully Big Adventure\u003c\/i\u003e, a transitional work between her earlier and later modes, and probably the best thing she wrote.\"\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e--Christopher Tayler, \u003ci\u003eHarper's Magazine\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e\"A Booker Prize nominee, Bainbridge's latest novel is a compelling read, again demonstrating her acuity of observation and darkly comic view of life. In Stella Bradshaw, a teenage aspiring actress from the slums of Liverpool, Bainbridge limns a tough but beguiling character . . . Her portrait of a seedy repertory troupe, whose members histrionically indulge in love affairs and unrequited passions, is classic . . . Bainbridge's prose brims with pithy insights tinged with sardonic humor, and her plot moves swiftly to a chilling conclusion.\"\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e--\u003ci\u003ePublishers Weekly\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e\"A formidably clever novelist.\"\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e--\u003ci\u003eThe Observer\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e\"[Beryl Bainbridge] united a riotous, macabre imagination with a talent for wit and compression.\"\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e--Alex Clarke, \u003ci\u003eThe Daily Telegraph\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e\"Beryl Bainbridge's writing makes everyone else's prose look flabby.\"\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e--Susannah Clapp, \u003ci\u003eLondon Review of Books\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e\"Imagine Priestley's\u003ci\u003e The Good Companions\u003c\/i\u003e as written by Gogol and you will have some idea of the mixture of waggish humour and sordid pathos in Bainbridge's novel . . . Bainbridge has the theatre in her bones . . . Her disconcerting humour, her ability to establish character in the flick of a sentence, her clarity of style are all confidently employed in this impressive novel, as well as the poignant appraisal of the not-very-distant past that is perhaps her own mournful trademark and gives her a unique place among British novelists.\"\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e--Penny Perrick, \u003ci\u003eThe Sunday Times\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"Beryl Bainbridge","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48880252518617,"sku":"9781961341920","price":32.99,"currency_code":"AUD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0502\/9530\/8441\/files\/9781961341920.jpg?v=1783000208","url":"https:\/\/www.arielbooks.com.au\/products\/an-awfully-big-adventure-9781961341920","provider":"Ariel","version":"1.0","type":"link"}