Book description
In her bestselling first volume of autobiography, Testament of Youth,
Vera Brittain passionately recorded the agonising years of the First
World War, lamenting the destruction of a generation which for her
included those she most dearly loved - her lover, her brother, her
closest friends. In Testament of Friendship Brittain tells the story of
the woman who helped her survive those tragic years - the writer
Winifred Holtby. They met at Somerville College, Oxford, immediately
after the war and their friendship continued through Vera's marriage and
their separate but parallel writing careers until Winifred's untimely
death at the age of thirty-seven. When she died her fame as a writer was
about to reach its peak with the publication of her greatest novel,
South Riding. A moving record of a friendship between two women of
courage, determination and intelligence, and a wonderful portrait of a
lifelong love, Testament of Friendship now takes its rightful place as a
Virago Modern Classic, with a new introduction by Mark Bostridge. Vera
Brittain (1893-1970) went up to Oxford but in 1914 left to enlist as a
VAD nurse. After the war she returned to Oxford and met Winifred Holtby.
She was a tireless supporter of pacifism and feminism, a prolific
speaker, lecturer, journalist and writer. She wrote twenty-nine books.
