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Editorial Review:
In 1914 Vera Brittain was 21 years old, and an undergraduate student at Somerville College, Oxford. When war broke out in August of that year, Brittain "temporarily" disrupted her studies to enrol as a volunteer nurse, nursing casualties both in England and on the Western Front. The next four years were to cause a deep rupture in Brittain's life, as she witnessed not only the horrors of war first hand, but also experienced the quadruple loss of her fiancé, her brother, and two close friends. Testament of Youth is a powerfully written, unsentimental memoir which has continued to move and enthral readers since its first publication in 1933. Brittain, a pacifist since her First World War experiences, prefaces the book with a fairy tale, in which Catherine, the heroine, encounters a fairy godmother and is given the choice of having either a happy youth or a happy old age. She selects the latter and so her fate is determined: "Now this woman," warns the tale, "was the destiny of poor Catherine." And we find as we delve deeper into the book that she was the destiny of poor Vera too.
Customer Reviews:
Avg. Customer Rating: 4.5 / 5.0
utterly heartbreaking; one woman's war My mother having pressed me to read this book, I finally got round to it early this year. Thank God I did. I cannot begin to put into words how much this book touched me. Vera Brittan must be an inspiration to all women; a strong and determined character who, despite losing almost everything to the War, did not give up. Vera Brittan was a young, ambitious girl growing up pre-war with aspirations to go to University (something uncommon for the day.) She succeeded in getting into Oxford to study English.... more info
An important memoir of the Great War and its aftermath In 1929 Vera Brittain ( 1893- 1970) began using her extensive diaries and correspondence to start writing her auto-biographical epic from 1913-1925, which was published in 1933. At the time Brittain was a part time lecturer for supporters of the League of Nations, a journalist, and had written two novels which had not been particularly well received. Ambitious and a feminist, Brittain seemed determined to succeed at something, and her greatest achievement has been in autobiography. The book is well... more info
The book that changed my life I first read this book when I was about 15 and it had such a remarkable effect on my life that 25 years later I still return to it again and again. It encapsulates so much of the period; the desperate need to get into higher education, the horror of war and its aftermath, how to make sense of it all and finally the joy of love and of friendship. Try Chronicles of Youth as well, the diaries on which she based the book.
A classic: shattering at times, always enlightening Vera Brittain's account was written in the early 1930s, as she tried to make sense of the extraordinary bereavement that affected those of her generation who survived the First World War. Growing up in provincial Edwardian England, a fascinating piece of writing in itself, she falls in love with one of her brothers's friends in 1914. The romance is going well, until the outbreak of war sweeps in to disrupt her life. Suddenly the love of her life, as well as her brother and some other close friends, are... more info
