The Dressmaker (Bainbridge novel) role. 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
Death of the novel the "death of the novel" were José Ortega y Gasset, who wrote his "Decline of the Novel" in 1925 and Walter Benjamin in his 1930 review "Krisis des Romans" (Crisis of the Novel). In the 1950s and 1960s, contributors to the discussion included Gore Vidal, Roland Barthes, and John Barth. Ronald Sukenick wrote the story "The Death of the Novel" in 1969. In 1954, Wolfgang Kayser argued that the death of the narrator would lead to the death of the novel - a view that has since been contested by many people. Meanwhile, Alain Robbe-Grillet argued that the novel would