Overview

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.

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9781780226590

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Reviews

Vera Brittain's heart-rending account of the way her generation's lives changed is still as shocking and moving as ever. STELLA MAGAZINE, SUNDAY TELEGRAPH Like the much-misunderstood poppy, Testament both memorializes and warns... to remain uninformed is actually life-threatening. TLS it was a surprise to pick her book up now and discover how very good it is. -- Diana Athill The Guardian sublimely moving... this is a truly great book... should be compulsory reading for the nation's debauched and aimless yobs and yobettes -- Val Hennessy 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 brilliantly captures the protracted horrors of a war into which her generation was preciptated unprepared... as a personal and social document of its turbulent times, written from the viewpoint of a serious and reflective young woman, this autobiographical work fully merits rediscovery. CATHOLIC HERALD Everyone should read this book. Like all true classics, it has something to tell us all, one generation after another. And this handsome new edition benefits from photographic illustrations and an elegant preface by Shirley Williams, Vera Brittain's distinguished daughter. If you have tears, prepare to share them now. TRIBUNE

Author Information

Born in 1893, Vera Brittain won an exhibition to Somerville College, Oxford, in 1914, but a year later abandoned her studies to enlist as a VAD nurse. She served throughout the war, working in London, Malta and close to the Front in France. At the end of the war, with all of those closest to her dead, she returned to Oxford. Vera 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, but it was TESTAMENT OF YOUTH which established her reputation and made her one of the best-loved writers of her time. She died in 1970.

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