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...
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.
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
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...
Literary responses
Sylvia Pankhurst
Save the Mothers was well reviewed. George Bernard Shaw
responded enthusiastically to the book, and Emmeline Pethick-Lawrence
expressed her pleasure at its positive reception. Vera Brittain
also praised it, favourably comparing SP
's activism for...
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...
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...
