In 1914 Vera Brittain was eighteen and, as war was declared, she was preparing to study at Oxford. Four years later her life - and the life of her whole generation - had changed in a way that was unimaginable in the tranquil pre-war era.
Testament of Youth, one of the most famous autobiographies of the First World War, is Brittain's account of how she survived the period; how she lost the man she loved; how she nursed the wounded and how she emerged into an altered world. A passionate record of a lost generation, it made Vera Brittain one of the best-loved writers of her time.
Vera Brittain (1893-1970) grew up in the north of England. At the end of the war she moved to Oxford where she met Winifred Holtby, author of South Riding. Brittain was a convinced pacifist, a prolific speaker, lecturer, journalist and writer. She devoted much of her energy to the causes of peace and feminism.
She wrote 29 books in all: novels, poetry, biography and autobiography, and other non-fiction, but it was Testament of Youth which established her reputation and made her one of the best loved writers of her time.
In 1914 Vera Brittain was eighteen and, as war was declared, she was preparing to study at Oxford. Four years later her life - and the life of her whole generation - had changed in a way that was unimaginable in the tranquil pre-war era.
Testament of Youth, one of the most famous autobiographies of the First World War, is Brittain's account of how she survived the period; how she lost the man she loved; how she nursed the wounded and how she emerged into an altered world. A passionate record of a lost generation, it made Vera Brittain one of the best-loved writers of her time.
Vera Brittain (1893-1970) grew up in the north of England. At the end of the war she moved to Oxford where she met Winifred Holtby, author of South Riding. Brittain was a convinced pacifist, a prolific speaker, lecturer, journalist and writer. She devoted much of her energy to the causes of peace and feminism.
She wrote 29 books in all: novels, poetry, biography and autobiography, and other non-fiction, but it was Testament of Youth which established her reputation and made her one of the best loved writers of her time.
Vera Brittain was born in 1893, and grew up in provincial comfort in Macclesfield and Buxton. In 1914, just as war was breaking out, she won an exhibition to Somerville College, Oxford, interrupting her studies the following year to enlist as a VAD nurse. She became one of the best-loved writers of her time with the publication, in 1933, of her passionate record of a lost generation, Testament of Youth. She wrote twenty-nine books in all, and was a prolific lecturer and journalist, who devoted much of her energy to the causes of peace and feminism. Vera Brittain died in 1970. The authorised biography, Vera Brittain: A Life (1995) by Paul Berry and Mark Bostridge is published by Virago Press.
Remains one of the most powerful and widely read war memoirs of all
time
*Guardian*
Vera Brittain's heart-rending account of the way her generation's
lives changed is still as shocking and moving as ever
*Sunday Telegraph*
A heartbreaking account of the impact of the First World War on a
stout-hearted, high-minded young woman
*Sunday Times*
Like the much-misunderstood poppy, Testament both memorializes and
warns ... to remain uninformed is actually life-threatening
*Times Literary Supplement*
Sublimely moving . . . this is a truly great book . . . should be
compulsory reading for the nation's debauched and aimless yobs and
yobettes
*Daily Mail*
Essential reading, not just as an anti-war polemic but as a
portrait of a whole generation of young people who were totally
ill-prepared and whose lives were utterly changed within four
momentous years
*Historical Novels Review*
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