Testament Of Youth

Vera Mary Brittain (29 December 1893 – 29 March 1970) was an English Voluntary Aid Detachment (VAD) nurse, writer, feminist, socialist, and pacifist. Her best-selling 1933 memoir Testament of Youth recounted her experiences during the First World War and the beginning of her journey towards pacifism.

'A haunting elegy for a lost generation' THE TIMES This classic memoir of the First World War - including an afterword by Kate Mosse OBE. 'Sublimely moving... this is a truly great book' DAILY MAIL 'A heartbreaking account of the impact of the First World War' SUNDAY TIMES 'Vera Brittain's heart-rending account of the way her generation's lives changed is still as shocking and moving as ever' SUNDAY TELEGRAPH STELLA MAGAZINE In 1914 Vera Brittain was 20, 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 would have been 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 those agonising years; 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, and has lost none of its power to shock, move and enthral readers since its first publication in 1933.

Vera Brittain and the First World War tells the remarkable story of the author behind Testament of Youth whilst charting the book's ascent to become one of the most loved memoirs of the First World War period. Such interest is set to expand even more in this centenary year of the war's outbreak. In the midst of her studies at Oxford when war broke out across Europe, Vera Brittain left university in 1915 to become a V.A.D (Voluntary Aid Detachment) nurse, treating soldiers in London, Malta and Etaples in France. The events of the First World War were to have an enormous impact on her life. Four of Brittain's closest friends including her fiancé Roland Leighton and her brother Edward Brittain MC were killed in action, sparking a lifelong commitment to pacifism. In 1933 she published Testament of Youth, the first of three books dealing with her experience of war. In equal measures courageous, tragic and deeply fascinating, Testament of Youth is one of the most compelling and important works of war literature ever to have been written by a British woman. Mark Bostridge's Vera Brittain and the First World War, published to coincide with the film of Testament of Youth, explores the effects of the First World War on Vera Brittain, both in terms of her personal life and in terms of its effect on her development as a writer and her eventual decision to become a pacifist. Taking advantage of the interest generated by the film, it will bring her story to a new generation and incorporate the most up-to-date research. It will also include a short essay 'From Book to Film', describing the process of turning Testament of Youth into a major feature film. This will include interviews with the production staff and actors, as well as with members of Vera Brittain's family, including Shirley Williams. The film, which has been scripted by Juliette Towhidi and is being produced by BBC Films and Heyday Films, the makers of Harry Potter, is currently in production. Alicia Vikander (Anna Karenina) stars as Brittain, with Kit Harington (Game of Thrones, Pompeii) playing her fiancé Roland Leighton.

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Experience Vera Brittain's poignant memoir that captures the tumultuous times of war and the enduring spirit of resilience. Testament of Youth by Vera Brittain; Mark Bostridge; et al.: Embark on a deeply personal and poignant journey through the tumultuous years of World War I with Vera Brittain's "Testament of Youth." This autobiographical account, expertly edited by Mark Bostridge and others, offers an intimate glimpse into the author's experiences as a nurse and her reflections on the devastating impact of war on individuals and society. Why This Book? "Testament of Youth" stands as a testament to the resilience of the human spirit amidst the horrors of war. Vera Brittain's eloquent prose and candid observations make this memoir a moving and relevant exploration of love, loss, and the enduring pursuit of peace.

Vera Brittain¿s bestselling TESTAMENT OF YOUTH was based on her own copious diaries, which have a much greater intimacy than the account written for publication. These are those diaries. They begin in the carefree summer of 1913 with a blossoming romance and earnest discussions about the purpose of life and the nature of God ¿ but not about the onset of war, which takes them by surprise. The diary entries begin to darken rapidly. Her brother, her fiancé and most of their young men friends are killed in the war. Vera herself goes from knitting helmets and bandaging classes to abandoning her studies at Oxford to train as a nurse. She spent the remainder of the war nursing war-wounded men, among them German prisoners. Her diaries, written in London, Malta and France, contain moving descriptions of battle scenes and Zeppelin horrors over London.

Vera Brittain is most widely known as the woman who immortalized a lost generation in her haunting autobiography of the Great War, TESTAMENT OF YOUTH. Writer, pacifist and feminist, she condemned her provincial background but remained acutely conscious of the conventional elements in her own character; she revealed a richly emotional life in her writing but was outwardly sober and reserved; she possessed a fierce desire for fame and recognition but was ready to sacrifice both on matters of principle. This biography - comprehensive, authoritative and immensely readable - confirms Vera Brittain's stature as one of the most remarkable women of our time.

In her bestselling first volume of autobiography, Testament of Youth, Vera Brittain passionately recorded the agonising years of the First World War, lamenting the destruction of a generation which for her included those she most dearly loved - her lover, her brother, her closest friends. In Testament of Friendship Brittain tells the story of the woman who helped her survive those tragic years - the writer Winifred Holtby. They met at Somerville College, Oxford, immediately after the war and their friendship continued through Vera's marriage and their separate but parallel writing careers until Winifred's untimely death at the age of thirty-seven.When she died her fame as a writer was about to reach its peak with the publication of her greatest novel, South Riding. A moving record of a friendship between two women of courage, determination and intelligence, and a wonderful portrait of a lifelong love, Testament of Friendship now takes its rightful place as a Virago Modern Classic, with a new introduction by Mark Bostridge.

This is a biographical study of the English writer and social activist Vera Brittain, (1893-1970). Author of more than twenty books and a successful journalist, Brittain is best known for her autobiographical Testament of Youth, which is remembered as the most important book of the First World War written from a woman's perspective. In the interwar decades, Vera Brittain became a staunch advocate of equal-rights feminism, an internationalist, and, by the late 1930s, a pacifist. In this book, Deborah Gorham focuses on Vera Brittain's struggles and achievements as a feminist. She contends that in both her public and private life, Brittain was representative of the group of educated middle-class women who brought to fruition the goals of Victorian bourgeois feminism in the years following the Great War.

As Testament of Youth movingly showed, the First World War was to haunt Vera Brittain throughout her life. When Great Britain again declared war on Germany in 1939, she feared the worst. But although during these years much was to be endured by the British, much was also to be gained. This spirit of determination is vividly captured by Vera Brittain as she describes her own personal experiences set against the dramatic events of the early war years, events like the Battle of Britain and the London Blitz which were to become a part of history as 'England's Hour'.

Testament of Youth is a searing story of love, war and remembrance, based on the First World War memoir by Vera Brittain which became the classic testimony of that war.

A feminist literary study of the friendship between two modern British writers as manifested in their works.

These essays offer readers vivid and varied evidence of the female response to recurring attempts by culture to artificially limit identity along the gendered lines of private and public experience. Calling on voices both familiar and little known, British and American, black and white, young and old, the essayists explore how women used life-writing as a means of both self-understanding and connection to a community of sympathetic others, real or imagined.