English novelist known for her psychologically astute portrayals of lower-middle-class English life.

Bainbridge grew up in a small town near Liverpool and began a theatrical career at an early age. She acted in various repertory theatres for many years before she published her first novel. Her work often presents in a comical yet macabre manner the destructiveness latent in ordinary situations. In A Weekend with Claud (1967), an experimental novel, the titular hero is a predatory, violent man. Another Part of the Wood (1968) concerns a child's death resulting from adult neglect. Harriet Said (1972) deals with two teenage girls who seduce a man and murder his wife. Other novels in this vein are The Bottle Factory Outing (1974), Sweet William (1975), A Quiet Life (1976), and Injury Time (1977). In Young Adolf (1978), Bainbridge imagines a visit Adolf Hitler might have paid to a relative living in England before World War I. Winter Garden (1980) is a mystery about an English artist who disappears on a visit to the Soviet Union. Subsequent novels include An Awfully Big Adventure (1989), The Birthday Boys (1991), Every Man for Himself (1996), Master Georgie (1998), and According to Queeney (2001).

In addition to her fiction, Bainbridge wrote several television plays, and she published work that underscores what she considered the cultural and ethical disintegration of contemporary life. English Journey; or, The Road to Milton Keynes (1984), is a diary she kept in 1983 during the filming of a television series for the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC). She also published Front Row: Evenings at the Theatre: Pieces from the Oldie (2005), a collection of reviews and other writings on theatre.