The Dressmaker (Bainbridge novel) The Dressmaker (Bainbridge novel) The Dressmaker (US title The Secret Glass) is a gothic psychological novel written by Beryl Bainbridge. In 1973, it was shortlisted for the Booker Prize. Like many of Bainbridge's earlier works, the novel is semi-autobiographical. In particular, the story was inspired by a relationship that she had with a soldier as a teenager. The characters of Nellie and Margo were based upon two of her paternal aunts. Set in Liverpool and Lancashire during World War II, a repressed dressmaker and her sister struggle looking after their 17-year-old niece, who is having a delusional affair with an
The Man Who Lived at the Ritz The Man Who Lived at the Ritz The Man Who Lived at the Ritz is a 1982 novel by A. E. Hotchner. It is the story of American painter Philip Weber, who lives at the Hôtel Ritz Paris during the German Occupation, and his friendships with notables such as Hermann Göring and Coco Chanel. The novel was adapted into a 1988 television miniseries starring Perry King. Anatole Broyard wrote for "The New York Times", "Toward the end ... the book turns into a thriller as well as a legitimate novel and a quasi-documentary portrait of Paris. Yet there's something about