Vera Brittain

29 December 1893 - 29 March 1970

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.

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Connections

Connections Sort descending	Author name	Excerpt
Literary responses	Penelope Lively	With this book PL was a second time shortlisted for the Booker Prize. Moran, Mary Hurley. Penelope Lively. Twayne, 1993. 96 An actual biographer, Mark Bostridge , called this a fine book, and said he relished the parallels with his actual situation...
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, 1979. 127 It is...
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	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	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	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...
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, 1996. 155
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	Women contributors ranged widely: Rebecca West , Stella Benson , Cicely Hamilton , Members of Parliament Lady Nancy Astor and Ellen Wilkinson , Virginia Woolf , Naomi Mitchison , E. M. Delafield , Rose Macaulay
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, 1973. 63-4
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...
Other Life Event	Winifred Holtby	In January 1940Vera Brittain published Testament of Friendship: The Story of Winifred Holtby, an account of their friendship which continued unbroken and unspoilt for sixteen incomparable years. Brittain, Vera, and Rosalind Delmar. Testament of Friendship. Virago, 1980. 2 Berry, Paul, and Mark Bostridge. Vera Brittain: A Life. Chatto and Windus, 1995. 337
politics	Dora Russell	The Council for the Abolition of Nuclear Weapons (forerunner of CND) was founded. DR was present at its inaugural meeting next day; other prominent members were Vera Brittain , Julian Huxley , J. B. Priestley
politics	Dora Russell	It featured such speakers as Vera Brittain , Ethel Mannin , Naomi Mitchison , Marie Stopes , Desmond MacCarthy , Bertrand Russell , and G. B. Shaw . Papers given included DR 's Marriage and...

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