Testament of Youth

Narrative

In the foreword, Brittain describes how she originally intended to write of her experiences as a novel but was unable to achieve the objective distance from her subject necessary. She then tried to publish her original diary from the war years but with all names fictionalised. This too proved unworkable. Only then did she decide to write her own personal story, putting her own experiences in the wider historic and social context. Several critics have noted the cathartic process by which she deals with her grief at the loss of young men close to her - her brother Edward Brittain, her fiancé Roland Leighton, her friends Victor Richardson and Geoffrey Thurlow - in the writing.

The narrative begins with Vera's plans to enter the University of Oxford and her romance with Roland Leighton, a friend of her brother Edward. Both were commissioned as officers early in World War I, and both were subsequently killed, as were several other members of their social circle.

The book's main subject is Vera's work as a Voluntary Aid Detachment nurse, nursing wounded in London, Malta and at Etaples in France. It also describes how she returned, disillusioned, to Somerville College, Oxford after the war and completed her BA degree. It covers the beginning of her career in journalism, writing for Time and Tide and lecturing for the League of Nations. She visits the graves of her brother Edward in Italy and her fiancé Roland in France. Together with Winifred Holtby she toured the defeated and occupied regions of Germany and Austria in 1923.

It concludes with her meeting her husband George Catlin and their eventual marriage in 1925.

The diaries on which the book is partly based, Chronicle of Youth, edited by Alan Bishop, were published in 1981. In 1998, the war letters which Brittain also drew on in her autobiography were published in an edition by Alan Bishop and Mark Bostridge. Entitled Letters from a Lost Generation, their appearance was met with considerable acclaim.

Publishing history

Adaptations

The book was dramatised by Elaine Morgan as a five-part serial which was transmitted on BBC2 in 1979. This version features Cheryl Campbell as Vera Brittain, Peter Woodward as Roland Leighton, Joanna McCallum as Winifred Holtby and Emrys James and Jane Wenham as Vera's parents.

In 1998, to commemorate the eightieth anniversary of the Armistice, a fifteen-part radio dramatisation of the letters on which Testament of Youth was partly based was broadcast on BBC Radio Four. Entitled Letters from a Lost Generation, it was dramatised by Mark Bostridge and starred Amanda Root as Vera Brittain and Rupert Graves as Roland Leighton.

In 2009 it was announced that the feature film Testament of Youth was in development by BBC Films and Heyday Films producer David Heyman, and was to be directed by James Kent. This had the support of the Vera Brittain Estate, Brittain's daughter Shirley Williams, and Brittain's biographer Mark Bostridge who is acting as consultant. Saoirse Ronan was cast to play Brittain in 2012 but was replaced in December 2013 when it was announced that Alicia Vikander would play Vera Brittain in the film which was released in late 2014 as part of the First World War commemorations. On 4 February 2014 Kit Harington joined the cast to play the role of Brittain's fiancé Roland Leighton. On 13 February 2014, Colin Morgan, Taron Egerton, and Alexandra Roach were announced to have joined the film's cast. An ensemble cast was later confirmed as filming began, including Dominic West, Emily Watson, Joanna Scanlan, Hayley Atwell, Jonathan Bailey and Anna Chancellor.

Criticism

A book by Brittain's biographer and editor Mark Bostridge, entitled Vera Brittain and the First World War. The Story of Testament of Youth was published by Bloomsbury in December 2014. It looks at early versions of the book in the wake of the new film adaptation.