Bainbridge was born in the port city of Liverpool in north-west England. Her agent, and her entry in Whos Who, gave the date as November 21, 1934, but records show her birth was registered early in 1933. Bainbridge herself sometimes said she struggled to remember her birth date, ever since she lied about her age so she could take a trip to France as a youngster without her parents knowledge.

The gritty spirit of Bainbridges home city informed her books, which blended humour, tragedy and the absurd.

All the books Ive written, even the historical ones, came from the place of my birth, the characters based on my parents and relations, she once said.

She published more than 15 novels, including A Weekend With Claud, The Bottle Factory Outing, and Injury Time.

Several drew directly on Bainbridges own experiences. Her early career as an actress in provincial theatre provided the setting for the tragicomic An Awfully Big Adventure, published in 1989 and made into a 1995 movie starring Alan Rickman and Hugh Grant.

As time went by, she increasingly turned to historical settings. Every Man for Himself was set aboard the Titanic and Master Georgie in the Crimean War, while According to Queeney looked at 18th-century lexicographer Samuel Johnson. Young Adolf imagined the aspiring artist Hitler in Liverpool before World War I, to comic and disturbing effect.

Bainbridge was a five-time finalist for the Booker Prize, and twice won the Whitbread literary prize.

Robustly outspoken - she was no fan of chick-lit, which she dismissed as froth - Bainbridge was unsentimental about lifes hardships.

In her 20s she attempted suicide, an event she later said she was ashamed to remember.

Despite her reputation as an iconoclast, Bainbridge was delighted to be made a dame, the female equivalent of a knight, by Queen Elizabeth II in 2000. The British government called her death a terrible loss.

At the time of her death Bainbri