Testament of Youth: An Autobiographical Study of the Years 1900-1925 (Penguin Classics) - Softcover

Brittain, Vera

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0140188444 ISBN 13: 9780140188448

Publisher: Penguin Classics, 1994

Synopsis

A heartwarming portrait of a young woman's life in pre-1914 England and a heartbreaking record of the holocaust that followed.

About this title

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:

"["Testament of Youth"]""remains one of the most powerful and widely read war memoirs of all time." --"The Guardian" (London)

["Testament of Youth"]" "remains one of the most powerful and widely read war memoirs of all time. "The Guardian" (London)"

[Testament of Youth] remains one of the most powerful and widely read war memoirs of all time. The Guardian (London)"

"[Testament of Youth] remains one of the most powerful and widely read war memoirs of all time." --The Guardian (London)

About this edition

• Publisher: Penguin Classics
• Publication date: 1994
• ISBN 10: 0140188444
• ISBN 13: 9780140188448
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• Number of pages: 672