Testament of Youth
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| Testament of Youth | |
 Cover of the 1978 Virago edition showing Vera Brittain as a VAD nurse |
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| Author | Vera Brittain |
|---|---|
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Genre(s) | Autobiography |
| Publisher | Victor Gollancz |
| Publication date | 1933 |
| Media type | Print (Hardback & Paperback) |
| ISBN | NA |
Testament of Youth is the first installment, covering 1913–1925, in the autobiography of Vera Brittain. It was published in 1933. Brittain's autobiography continues with Testament of Experience, published in 1957, and encompassing 1925–1950. Between these two books comes Testament of Friendship (published in 1940), which, while also autobiographical, is essentially a biography of Brittain's close colleague and friend, Winifred Holtby.
Testament of Youth has been acclaimed as a classic for its description of the impact of World War I on the lives of women and the civilian population of Great Britain. The book shows how the impact extended into the postwar years. It is also considered a classic in feminist literature for its depiction of a woman's pioneer struggle to forge an independent career in a society only grudgingly tolerant of educated women.
In the foreword, Brittain describes how she originally intended to write of her experiences as a novel but was unable to achieve the objective distance from her subject necessary. She then tried to publish her original diary from the war years but with all names fictionalised. This too proved unworkable. Only then did she decide to write her own personal story, putting her own experiences in the wider historic and social context. Several critics have noted the cathartic process by which she deals with her grief in the writing.
The narrative begins with Vera's plans to enter the University of Oxford and her romance with Roland Leighton, a friend of her brother Edward. Both were commissioned as officers early in World War I, and both were subsequently killed, as were several other members of their social circle.
The book's main subject is Vera's work as a Voluntary Aid Detachment nurse, nursing wounded in London, Malta and at Etaples in France. It also describes how she returned, disillusioned, to Somerville College, Oxford after the war and completed her BA degree. It covers the beginning of her career in journalism, writing for Time and Tide and lecturing for the League of Nations. She visits the graves of her brother Edward in Italy and her fiance Roland in France. Together with Winifred Holtby she toured the defeated and occupied regions of Germany and Austria in 1923.
It concludes with her meeting her husband George Catlin and their eventual marriage in 1925.
The book was the subject of a highly successful dramatisation on BBC2 in 1979, starring Cheryl Campbell as Vera Brittain.
[edit] Publishing history
- First published Victor Gollancz (1 Jan 1933)
- Victor Gollancz, London (1940)
- Wideview Books (1970) ISBN 0860680355
- Virago Press (1978) ISBN 8606803553
- Fontana (1979) ISBN 0006357032]
- Seaview Books. (1980) B010174; 661
- Penguin Group (USA) (1980) ISBN 0872236722
- Putnam Pub Group (1980) ISBN 0872236722
- Penguin Classics (May 31, 2005) ISBN 0143039237
- Publisher: Virago Press Ltd (2004) ISBN 0860680355
[edit] References
- The making of a peacenik Mark Bostridge, The Guardian August 30, 2003. Brittain's biographer, reviews "Testament of Youth". Accessed May 2008
- Testament of Youth, Vera Brittains Literary Quest for Peace By Linda S. Coleman Popular Press (1997). Accessed June 2008
- Mourning through Memoir: Trauma, Testimony, and Community in Vera Brittain's Testament of Youth. by Richard Badenhausen in Twentieth Century Literature, Vol. 49, 2003. Extract accessed June 2008
[edit] External links
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