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.
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, 1962.
174
Brittain, Vera. Chronicle of Friendship. Editor Bishop, Alan, Gollancz, 1986.
38, 56
Friends, Associates
Una Marson
In May 1949, UM
invited Vera Brittain
to Kingston to speak to young Jamaican writers and encourage their literary work.
Jarrett-Macauley, Delia. The Life of Una Marson, 1905-65. Manchester University Press, 1998.
183
Friends, Associates
Winifred Holtby
Through her work with the Six Point Group
and Time and Tide, WH
met the founder of both, Margaret Haig, Lady Rhondda
. Their professional relationship grew into a friendship, and WH
dedicated her...
Pethick-Lawrence, Emmeline. My Part in a Changing World. Hyperion, 1976.
338
Back in England, she contacted Vera Brittain
after having read Brittain's Testament of Youth, 1933, to invite Brittain to visit the...
Intertextuality and Influence
Olive Schreiner
To Vera Brittain
and some of her contemporaries, Women and Labour was the Bible of the Women's Movement. It influenced the writings of many early-twentieth-century feminists, including historian Alice Clark
and suffragette Constance Lytton
Intertextuality and Influence
May Cannan
The critic and family friend Sir Walter Raleigh
, who saw these poems before publication, called them heart-breaking and terribly naked.
qtd. in
Cannan, May, and Bevil Quiller-Couch. “Editorial Materials”. The Tears of War, edited by Charlotte Fyfe, Cavalier Books, 2000, p. Various pages.
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
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
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
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
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...
Many reviewers praised this book as a quintessential love story. The Christian Science Monitor called it a moving love story, as romantic in its way, as that of the Brownings, while the News Chronicle...
Timeline
No timeline events available.
Texts
Brittain, Vera, and Shirley Williams. Testament of Youth. Virago, 1978.
Brittain, Vera. The Dark Tide. Grant Richards, 1923.
Brittain, Vera. The Women at Oxford. George G. Harrap, 1960.
Brittain, Vera, editor. Vera Brittain’s Personal Letter to Peace-Lovers. V. Brittain, 1-169.
Brittain, Vera. Verses of a VAD. Erskine MacDonald, 1918.
Brittain, Vera. Women’s Work in Modern England. Noel Douglas, 1928.
