A modern classic, Testament of Youth is both an elegy and a memoir, a book for all seasons that would have a remarkable literary afterlife in the 1970s and 1980s. Peripherally interested in the war, Brittain provides a fascinating picture of a young girl’s tormented coming of age as the long summer of Edwardian England becomes overcast by the storms of total war. Vera Brittain on Mrs Pankhurst and feminism: from the archive, 20 June 1928 Read moreNow Brittain enlists as a VAD nurse, tending the wounded in field dressing stations. Testament of Youth, which sold hundreds of thousands of copies on publication, had and continues to have its own afterlife. Testament of Youth achieves this, then it goes further.

Source: The Guardian November 14, 2016 05:45 UTC