Letters From A Lost Generation: First World War Letters of Vera Brittain and Four Friends

(Paperback)

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'Nothing in the papers, not the most vivid and heart-rending descriptions, have made me realise war like your letters' Vera Brittain to Roland Leighton, 17 April 1915.

This selection of letters, written between 1913 and 1918, between Vera Brittain and four young men - her fiance Roland Leighton, her brother Edward and their close friends Victor Richardson and Geoffrey Thurlow present a remarkable and profoundly moving portrait of five young people caught up in the cataclysm of total war.

Roland, 'Monseigneur , is the 'leader' and his letters most clearly trace the path leading from idealism to disillusionment. Edward, Immaculate of the Trenches , was orderly and controlled, down even to his attire. Geoffrey, the non-militarist at heart had not rushed to enlist but put aside his objections to the war for patriotism s sake. Victor on the other hand, possessed a very sweet character and was known as Father Confessor . An important historical testimony telling a powerful story of idealism, disillusionment and personal tragedy.

Reviews

'Unique...a remarkable portrait of five young people caught up in the cataclysm of war' INDEPENDENT ON SUNDAY 'Immensely moving...As the first world war slips out of living memory, this is a timely reminder of what was lost - and how we lost it' SUNDAY TIMES 'Touching, angry, bewildered...they demand to be read' MAIL ON SUNDAY 'Beautifully edited and with excellent notes.' TLS 'In their immediacy these letters are unirvaled.' DAILY MAIL 'The events set in motion by the outbreak of the First World War in 1914 changed many lives irrevocably. For Vera Brittain, an Oxford undergraduate who left her studies to volunteer as a nurse in military hospitals in England and France, the war was a shattering experience; she not only witnessed the horrors inflicted by combat through her work, but she lost the four men closest to her at that time--her fiance Roland Leighton, brother Edward and two close friends, Geoffrey Thurlow and Victor Nicholson, who all died on the battlefields. Letters from a Lost Generation, a collection of previously unpublished correspondence between Brittain and these young men--all public schoolboys at the start of the war--chronicles her relationship with them and reveals "the old lie": The idealised glory of patriotic duty which was soon overtaken by the grim reality of the Flanders' trenches. The letters are lively, dramatic, immediate and, despite the awfulness of war, curiously optimistic: "... somehow I feel the end is not destined to be here and now. We have not fulfilled ourselves--and someday we shall live our roseate poem through", wrote Vera to in one of her last letters to Roland in December 1915, just days before he was killed by a sniper's bullet. Following his death, and later those of their mutual friends Victor and Geoffrey, Vera's letters take on a new, raw intensity as she concentrates all her emotions on her brother--a hero awarded the Military Cross--until his death on the Italian Front in June 1918. These letters formed the basis of Vera Brittain's remarkable autobiography, Testament of Youth and vividly bring to life the voices of the "lost generation" whose words threaten to be lost forever as the First World War recedes even further from living memory.' - Catherine Taylor, AMAZON.CO.UK

Author Bio

Mark Bostridge is the co-author of Vera Brittain: A Life (Chatto & Windus 1995), which was shortlisted for several prizes. Alan Bishop is Professor of English at McMaster University in Ontario and has edited three volumes of Vera Brittain's diaries.