Paul Bailey (British writer)
Peter Harry Bailey FRSL (16 February 1937 – 27 October 2024), better known as Paul Bailey, was a British novelist and critic, as well as a biographer of Cynthia Payne and Quentin Crisp.
Life and career
[edit]Peter Harry Bailey was born in south London on 16 February 1937.[1] He attended Sir Walter St John's Grammar School For Boys in Battersea, London. He won a scholarship to the Central School of Speech and Drama in 1953 and worked as an actor between 1956 and 1964. He became a freelance writer in 1967.
He was appointed Literary Fellow at Newcastle and Durham Universities (1972–74), and was awarded a Bicentennial Fellowship in 1976, enabling him to travel to the US, where he was Visiting Lecturer in English Literature at the North Dakota State University (1977–79). He was awarded the E. M. Forster Award in 1974 and in 1978 he won the George Orwell Memorial Prize for his essay "The Limitations of Despair", first published in The Listener magazine. Bailey was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1999.[2]
Bailey's novels included At The Jerusalem (1967),[3] which is set in an old people's home, and which won a Somerset Maugham Award and an Arts Council Writers' Award; Peter Smart's Confessions (1977) and Gabriel's Lament (1986), both shortlisted for the Booker Prize;[3][4] and Sugar Cane (1993), a sequel to Gabriel's Lament. Kitty and Virgil (1998) is the story of the relationship between an Englishwoman and an exiled Romanian poet. In Uncle Rudolf (2002), the narrator looks back on his colourful life and his rescue as a young boy from a likely death in fascist Romania, by his uncle, a gifted lyric tenor and the novel's eponymous hero. In his book Chapman's Odyssey (2011), the main character, Harry Chapman, in morphine-induced delirium, encounters characters from literature, writers, deceased friends and family members as he lies seriously ill in a London hospital.[5] Despite his melancholy and fear, Harry entertains the nurses with recitations of some of the favourite poems he has memorised in a lifetime of reading. Bailey's last book was The Prince's Boy (2014), a melancholic gay love story that spans four decades.
Bailey also wrote plays for radio and television: At Cousin Henry's was broadcast in 1964 and his adaptation of Joe Ackerley's We Think the World of You was televised in 1980. His non-fiction books include a volume of memoir, entitled An Immaculate Mistake: Scenes from Childhood and Beyond (1990), and Three Queer Lives: An Alternative Biography of Naomi Jacob, Fred Barnes and Arthur Marshall (2001), a biography of three gay popular entertainers from the twentieth century.[6]
Bailey was also known as a literary critic, and contributor to The Guardian[7] and in 2001 headed an all-male "alternative" judging panel for the Orange Prize.[8]
Bailey died on 27 October 2024, at the age of 87.[1]
Bibliography
[edit]- At The Jerusalem (1967) – winner of the Authors' Club Best First Novel Award and Somerset Maugham Award
- Trespasses (1970)
- A Distant Likeness (1973)
- Peter Smart's Confessions (1977), shortlisted for the Booker Prize
- Old Soldiers (1980)
- An English Madam: The Life and Work of Cynthia Payne (1982)
- Gabriel's Lament (1986), shortlisted for the Booker Prize
- An Immaculate Mistake: Scenes from Childhood and Beyond (1990)
- Sugar Cane (1993)
- The Oxford Book of London (ed., 1995)
- First Love (ed., 1997)
- Kitty and Virgil (1998)
- The Stately Homo: A Celebration of the Life of Quentin Crisp (ed., 2000)
- Three Queer Lives: An Alternative Biography of Naomi Jacob, Fred Barnes and Arthur Marshall (2001)
- Uncle Rudolf (2002)
- A Dog's Life (2003)
- Chapman's Odyssey (2011)
- The Prince's Boy (2014)
References
[edit]- ^ a b "Paul Bailey, writer who explored love and loss and wrote an acclaimed biography of Cynthia Payne". The Telegraph. 28 October 2024. Retrieved 28 October 2024.
- ^ "Paul Bailey". The Royal Society of Literature. Retrieved 6 August 2022.
- ^ a b McCrum, Robert (7 March 2010) "Last year was sheer hell for the novelist Paul Bailey. Better times may be here", The Observer. Retrieved 4 July 2011.
- ^ Taylor, Alan (27 September 1986), "Six Authors Brought to Booker", Glasgow Herald, p. 10. Retrieved 4 July 2011.
- ^ Miller, Keith (14 January 2011) "Chapman's Odyssey by Paul Bailey: review", The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 4 July 2011.
- ^ Canning, Richard (2001) "Three Queer lives by Paul Bailey: Happy campers[dead link]", The Independent, 3 November 2001. Retrieved 4 July 2011.
- ^ "Paul Bailey". www.theguardian.com. Guardian News and Media Limited. Retrieved 13 June 2015.
- ^ Ezard, John (6 June 2001), "Out of the 'gum tree and wombat culture'", The Guardian. Retrieved 4 July 2011.
External links
[edit]- Paul Bailey at British Council: Literature includes a brief analysis of his work.
- Tate Etc. Issue 12 / Spring 2008.
- Paul Bailey at IMDb
- 1937 births
- 2024 deaths
- 20th-century British male writers
- 20th-century British writers
- 20th-century British non-fiction writers
- 20th-century British novelists
- 21st-century British male writers
- 21st-century British non-fiction writers
- 21st-century British novelists
- Academics of Kingston University
- Alumni of the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama
- British biographers
- British gay writers
- British LGBTQ novelists
- British male non-fiction writers
- Fellows of the Royal Society of Literature
- North Dakota State University faculty
- People educated at Sir Walter St John's Grammar School For Boys