Beryl Bainbridge, Birthday Boys

Markus Hiltl (Université de Paris IV Sorbonne)

The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.2.1.09: English Writing and Culture: Postwar and Contemporary Britain , 1945-present.
Vol. editors: Gina Lyle (University of Glasgow), Graham MacPhee (University of Manchester), Kerry Myler (Birmingham Newman University), Jenni Ramone (The Nottingham Trent University)

Dates

First circulation or publication 1991

Places

England (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Historical
Novel

Resources

Save to Bookshelf

Beryl Bainbridge’s novel

The Birthday Boys

was published in 1991. It was the author’s second historical novel or “faction”, after

Young

dolf

(1978) and retells Robert Falcon Scott’s famous and fatal expedition to the South Pole, starting with its departure from Cardiff in June 1910 and ending in March 1912. Bainbridge sticks closely to the well-known historical facts and all characters of the story are based on real persons (officers, seamen and scientists). The novel is divided into five chapters and follows the classical pattern of tragic drama beginning

in medias res

and evolving through

peripeteia

anagnorisis

. Each chapter is told by one the five members of the select group which actually headed to the South Pole -- Petty Officer Edgar “Taff” Evans, Dr Edward…

Please log in to consult the article in its entirety. If you are a member (student of staff) of a subscribing institution (see List), you should be able to access the LE on campus directly (without the need to log in), and off-campus either via the institutional log in we offer, or via your institution's remote access facilities, or by creating a personal user account with your institutional email address. If you are not a member of a subscribing institution, you will need to purchase a personal subscription. For more information on how to subscribe as an individual user, please see under Individual Subcriptions.

2570 words

Citation: Hiltl, Markus. "Birthday Boys". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 01 October 2007 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=6324, accessed 19 April 2024.]

Save this article