Born in Bingley, near Bradford, Yorkshire, Braine left St. Bede's Grammar School at 16 and worked in a shop, a laboratory and a factory before becoming, after the war, a librarian. Although he wrote twelve works of fiction, Braine is chiefly remembered today for his first novel, Room at the Top (1957), which was also turned into a successful film in 1959.

Following his success he moved to the south of England, living for a time in Woking. His 1968 novel, The Crying Game, is set in London and captures some of the atmosphere of the 'Swinging Sixties'. (It is not related to the 1992 film of the same name). Mildly left-wing in youth, he later moved (like his contemporaries Kingsley Amis and John Wain) to the political right, and supported America's involvement in Vietnam. He died in 1986, aged 64.

Fiction

• Room at the Top (1957)
• The Vodi (1959)
• Life at the Top (1962)
• The Jealous God (1964)
• The Crying Game (1968) (Not related to the 1992 film of the same title)
• Stay with Me Till Morning (1970)
• The Queen of a Distant Country (1972)
• The Pious Agent (1975)
• Waiting for Sheila (1976)
• One and Last Love (1981)
• The Two of Us (1984)
• These Golden Days (1985)
• Man at the Top (Thames Television, 1970-1): five scripts for the first series of this drama based on Braine's character Joe Lampton

Non-fiction

• Writing a Novel (1974)
• J. B. Priestley (1978)

Posthumous

House of Stratus has recently re-published some of Braine's novels.