Product Description

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.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #4361 in Books
• Published on: 1933-01-01
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 640 pages

Amazon.co.uk 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.

Review
'A unique record of one woman's experience of twenty-five of the most cataclysmic years in modern history.' - T.L.S. 'A haunting elegy for a lost generation.' - THE TIMES "Nothing else in the literature of the first world war charts so clearly the path leading from erosion of innocence, with the destruction of the public school boy's heroic illusions, to the survivors' final disillusionment that the sacrifice of the dead had been in vain." - MARK BOSTERIDGE, GUARDIAN '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 fiance, 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.' - AMAZON.CO.UK 'Miss Brittain has written a book which stands alone among books written by women about the war.' - SUNDAY TIMES 'Desperately heartrending personal account of a generation of young men being killed on the Western Front in the First World War.' - SIR BERNARD INGHAM, SUNDAY EXPRESS

Guardian, August 30, 2003
" Today, Testament is firmly enshrined in the canon of the literature of the first world war.."

Customer Reviews

A must read book
If you only read one book about the First World War, read this one. The true horror of the war is detailed, and it really makes you think about the loss and sacrifice.
I read this book first of all studying for my History degree,and I have re-read it many times since then.
Vera's life and what happened to her, and her friends has stayed with me always, and I have now encouraged other people to read it too.

A 'must read'.
Vera Brittain effectively conveys the anguish, pain, grief and helplessness of a civilian in times of war in a manner that I have not witnessed in any other account.

Having read this book twice I am not ashamed to admit that I wept on both occasions. I defy anyone to read Vera's biography with dry eyes.

By todays standards her prose may appear old-fashioned but it is extremely elegant and most effective considering her subject matter. The prosaic descriptions of her mental turmoil and sense of hopelessness contrast vividly with her determination and resolve to help alleviate the suffering of the soldiers by joining the nursing establishment at the front. Her inclusion of poems and letters within the text considerably aids the readers understanding of both her personal relationships and state of mind during this period.

Being well versed in the history, and statistics, of the Great War, I found 'Testament of Youth' extremely enlightening in terms of the personal suffering that was endured by individuals like Vera who were forever changed by the experience.

Perhaps, were it a prerequisite for aspiring politicions to read this book, our nations leaders may well find it a lot more difficult to commit a country to war.

This is an important book.

An essential book
I have just finished reading 'Testament of Youth' and thought you could hardly better the sense of experience, personal and national, that comes out of it. I come to the book from an 'autobiography' background, rather than of 'interest in the war' as such, and therefore to my mind the first two thirds of the book are best where Vera Brittain is conveying her personal experience and responses; I think she is less good in conveying her work for the League of Nations etc. But then, perhaps that is the point of it. As she says a couple of times in the text, these are experiences which I will never be able to overcome. Her courage in picking herself up after the war is fantastic, but you know in your heart that something has been lost in her forever. It was also very nice to read about a Buxton lass. I like Derbyshire & the Dales and I enjoyed the presentation of 'genteel' Buxton and her family and friends.