In the 1990s, Bainbridge turned to historical fiction. These novels continued to be popular with critics, but this time, were also commercially successful. Among her historical fiction novels are "Every Man for Himself", about the 1912 Titanic disaster, for which Bainbridge won the 1996 Whitbread Awards prize for best novel, and "Master Georgie", set during the Crimean War, for which she won the 1998 James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction. Her final novel, "According to Queeney", is a fictionalized account of the last years of the life of Samuel Johnson as seen through the eyes of Queeney Thrale, eldest daughter of Henry and Hester Thrale. "The Observer" referred to it as a "...highly intelligent, sophisticated and entertaining novel".