Women’s Writing in the British Isles from the Beginnings to the Present
Vera Brittain
-
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.
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...
Literary responses
Muriel Box
Its recent editors call it very much a beginner's piece of work with regard to dialogue and stage impact. Yet they feel it is valuable for exemplifying the way that feminist ideas survived and continued...
Textual Production
Muriel Box
MB
's first contact with her future second husband arose out of correspondence about legal matters canvassed in this book.
Box, Muriel. Rebel Advocate. Victor Gollancz.
195
The work itself fulfilled the aim of Femina Books
: to produce titles with...
Friends, Associates
Phyllis Bentley
PB
stayed with Vera Brittain
and Winifred Holtby
at the house in Glebe Place in Chelsea where they and Brittain's husband, George Catlin
, all lived.
Bentley, Phyllis. "O Dreams, O Destinations". Gollancz.
174
Brittain, Vera. Chronicle of Friendship. Editor Bishop, Alan, Gollancz.
Brittain, Vera. Chronicle of Friendship. Editor Bishop, Alan, Gollancz.
39-40
Friends, Associates
Phyllis Bentley
Vera Brittain
introduced PB
, during her stay in Chelsea, to birth-control crusader Marie Stopes
.
Brittain, Vera. Chronicle of Friendship. Editor Bishop, Alan, Gollancz.
41
Reception
Phyllis Bentley
A Modern Tragedy is one of PB
's better-known novels.
Blain, Virginia et al., editors. The Feminist Companion to Literature in English: Women Writers from the Middle Ages to the Present. Yale University Press; Batsford.
She was somewhat offended when her friend Vera Brittain
told her that she thought that the character of Elaine from this novel was based on...
This summer she spent a holiday at Varengeville in Normandy, with Naomi Mitchison
. She also met Sydney Schiff
(at Chesham in Buckinghamshire), and on 31 August 1925 had her first meeting with...
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...
Textual Production
Simone de Beauvoir
A valedictory volume of SB
's autobiography appeared under the title of Tout compte fait (translated into English in 1974 by Patrick O'Brian
as All Said and Done).
