Vera Brittain

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Standard Name: Brittain, Vera
Birth Name: Vera Mary Brittain
From her university days before the First World War, VB was determined to be a writer. Her career as a novelist never fulfilled her own expectations; it was not until the publication of Testament of Youth, the first of her volumes combining autobiography with social and cultural history, that she achieved significant success. She also wrote both poetry and pamphlets. Much of her oeuvre is politically engaged, from her feminist journalism and social criticism of the 1920s to her pacifist writings of World War II.

Connections

Connections Sort ascending Author name Excerpt
Occupation Mary Stott
Following in the footsteps of Vera Brittain and Winifred Holtby , MS became first virtual, then titular Editor of the Women's Page for the Manchester Guardian (latterly the Guardian).
Stott, Mary. Forgetting’s No Excuse. Faber and Faber.
63-4
Occupation Kathleen E. Innes
Among those drafted to form the Mandate's Honorary Council in Britain were prominent politicians, clergy, feminists, and writers such as Margaret Ashton , Margaret Bondfield , Vera Brittain , Arthur Henderson , Laurence Housman ,...
Occupation Margaret Haig, Viscountess Rhondda
Occupation Muriel Box
She had in fact discussed this venture with Sydney, and he had encouraged her. She had formerly been a non-active director of his publishing company Triton Books . She was able to capitalise her new...
Material Conditions of Writing Winifred Holtby
WH began writing this novel, which was originally titled Anlaby Wold, in 1920 while she and Vera Brittain were still students at Oxford .
Gorham, Deborah. Vera Brittain: A Feminist Life. Blackwell.
155
Literary responses Storm Jameson
The appearance of Europe to Let struck a blow at SJ 's in any case faltering friendship with Vera Brittain . They quarrelled over the character Olga (Johnson) Stehlík in The Hour of Prague...
Literary responses Radclyffe Hall
A number of writers rallied in support of RH . E. M. Forster and Leonard Woolf drafted a letter protesting the suppression of The Well of Loneliness. Its signatories included Bernard Shaw , T. S. Eliot
Literary responses Storm Jameson
This text delivered a final blow to SJ 's long and close friendship with Vera Brittain (who had dedicated her political England's Hour to Jameson only that February). Not only did Brittain remain a staunch...
Literary responses Emmeline Pethick-Lawrence
EPL 's involvement in the militant suffrage movement was necessarily controversial: contemporaries both lauded and reviled her. In her diary Virginia Woolf described EPL 's style of public speaking in 1918 with some disdain. I...
Literary responses Jan Struther
Responses in England were more mixed. Hardly any reviewers were able to refrain from snide comment about the inaccurate representation of their country, but most added a saving clause: the film was genuinely moving. But...
Literary responses Stella Benson
Forty-six years after Benson's death, Naomi Mitchison acknowledged that her work had ceased being read, that her fantasy was misunderstood as whimsy. She felt, however, that in 1979 a revival was due.
Mitchison, Naomi. You May Well Ask: A Memoir 1920-1940. Gollancz.
127
It is...
Literary responses Annie S. Swan
Among this book's admirers was Winifred Holtby , who had proffered advice from herself and Vera Brittain not to worry about reviews, and who then wrote favourable ones herself for both Good Housekeeping and Time...
Literary responses Margaret Kennedy
The novel's initial favourable reviews came from an earlier generation of authors, including George Moore , A. E. Housman , Thomas Hardy , Arnold Bennett , J. M. Barrie , and H. G. Wells ...
Literary responses Margaret Haig, Viscountess Rhondda
Virginia Woolf liked the work, but observed that MHVR was not subtle.
Woolf, Virginia. The Letters of Virginia Woolf. Editors Nicolson, Nigel and Joanne Trautmann, Hogarth Press.
5: 167
Close friend Winifred Holtby , journalist and novelist, thought that the autobiography was splendidly free from bunk,
Eoff, Shirley. Viscountess Rhondda: Equalitarian Feminist. Ohio State University Press.
103
a sentiment that...
Literary responses Rosamond Lehmann
Some commentators, including Vera Brittain , felt this essay too clearly reflected the influence of Virginia Woolf .
Hastings, Selina. Rosamond Lehmann. Chatto and Windus.
133
Critic Ruth Siegel commends it as displaying the assertiveness characteristic of Lehmann's expository prose, which could...

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