An Awfully Big Adventure
1989
Shortlisted for the 1990 Booker Prize, and with a new introduction by Yiyun Li, a darkly comic novel of class, the long shadow of war, and unrequited first love.
‘Vintage, bittersweet Bainbridge’ Mail on Sunday
'One of Bainbridge's best books. The close observation and hilarity are underlain by a sense of tragedy as deep as any in fiction' The Times
Liverpool, 1950. Sixteen-year-old Stella is hired as assistant stage manager by a repertory theatre company and soon falls into a heady infatuation with the director, Meredith – failing to notice how he shows not only no interest in her, but in any woman. When the celebrated actor O’Hara arrives to take the lead in their production of Peter Pan, it sets in motion a drama offstage of lost innocence, tragedy and miscommunication.
Peopled by a cast of eccentric characters, the air thick with the scent of greasepaint and cigarettes, An Awfully Big Adventure is an evocative and sharp-edged novel for fans of Penelope Fitzgerald, Muriel Spark and Camilla Grudova.
First published by Duckworth in 1989
Published by Penguin in 1991
Published in the US by Carroll & Graf in 1993
Published by Abacus in 2011
2026 edition published by Daunt Books (UK) and McNally Editions (US)
Beryl Bainbridge's An Awfully Big Adventure