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Beryl Bainbridge

British writer (1932, Liverpool), known for her novels and historical prose. Her novel "Master Georgie" (1998) is devoted in large part to Crimea during the Crimean War.

Overview

Beryl Bainbridge was an English writer born in 1932 in Liverpool. Her creative debut dates to her school years (she was expelled from school for an indecent rhyme), after which she acted in a local theatre. Her first published book was the novel "A Weekend with Claude" (1967), followed by "Another Part of the Wood" (1968), "The Dressmaker" (1973), "The Bottle Factory Outing" (1974, Guardian Fiction Prize), and "Injury Time" (1977, Whitbread Book Award). Her novel "An Awfully Big Adventure" (1989) was adapted for the screen (with Hugh Grant in the lead role).

In 1998 Bainbridge published the historical novel "Master Georgie," in which Crimea occupies an important place: the second part of the work moves the characters to the Crimean War. The narrative shows the war through the lens of a field hospital, photojournalism, and nurses, contrasting the ceremonial heroism with the grim everyday reality of the wounded. The final episode — a photographer of an "influential newspaper" poses the dead surgeon Georgie among the living with the demand "Smile! Smile, people!" — becomes a symbol of the war's cynicism.

Key Details / Subtopics

  • Biography: Born in 1932 in Liverpool; acting and writing career beginnings; a series of award-winning novels of the second half of the 20th century.
  • "Master Georgie" (1998): The plot begins in Victorian England (Georgie, a surgeon and photography pioneer, the orphan Myrtle, the photographer's apprentice Pompey Jones, the geologist Dr. Potter) and later moves to the Crimean War.
  • The Crimean layer of the novel: The landing on Crimea's western coast on 14 September, time spent near Balaklava and Sevastopol, Sapun Hill, the Chernaya (Black) River; a description of the hospital "underbelly" of the war.
  • Historical context: The Crimean War as the advent of photo reports from the theatre of military operations and of the service of military nurses.
  • Crimea in Works of Foreign Literature: "Smile! Smile!" — An article by Valerii Verkhovsky in the newspaper "Krymska svitlytsia" (2018, No. 26), the main primary source on Bainbridge and the novel "Master Georgie."
  • The Crimean (Eastern) War of 1853–1856 in the Kherson Region — The historical era into which the events of the novel "Master Georgie" are set.
  • Jules Verne and Crimea — Another article from the same "Crimea in Works of Foreign Literature" rubric on the portrayal of Crimea in foreign literature.
  • Brian Garfield — An article from the same rubric on the American writer and his novel with a Crimean plot, "Kolchak's Gold."
  • Jasper Fforde — An article from the same rubric on the Welsh fantasy writer and his novel "The Jane Affair" with an alternative Crimean War.
  • George Fraser — An article from the same rubric on the Scottish writer and the Harry Flashman series (the Crimean War, escape from captivity).
  • Harold Lamb — An article from the same rubric on the American writer and the "Cossack cycle" about the Cossack Khlit (the Crimean Khanate, influence on Robert E. Howard).
  • Heinrich Böll — An article from the same rubric on the German Nobel Prize-winning writer and his Crimean frontline experience (1943).
  • Colleen McCullough — An article from the same rubric on the Australian writer and the depiction of Mithridates/Bosporus/Panticapaeum in "Masters of Rome."
  • Louis Boussenard — An article from the same rubric on the French writer of adventure fiction and the novel "The Zouaves of the Malakhov Mound" about the Crimean War.
  • Mark Twain — An article from the same rubric on the American writer who visited Crimea in 1867 and described his impressions in the book "The Innocents Abroad" (a bestseller of 1869).
  • Michael Moorcock — An article from the same rubric on the British writer of speculative fiction and the "Hawkmoon" cycle (techno-fantasy) with a Crimean plot (Simferopol, Kerch, "Ukrania").