Letters from a lost generation
Subtitle: the First World War letters of Vera Brittain and four friends, Roland Leighton, Edward Brittain, Victor Richardson, Geoffrey Thurlow
By: edited by Alan Bishop and Mark Bostridge.
Contributors: Bishop, Alan.; Bostridge, Mark.
Publisher: Northeastern University Press
Published: 1999
Place of publication: Boston
Language: eng
Number of pages: 427
Subjects: Brittain, Vera, 1893-1970 -- Correspondence.; Brittain, Vera, 1893-1970 -- Friends and associates.; World War, 1914-1918 -- Personal narratives, British.; Authors, English -- 20th century -- Correspondence.; Pacifists -- Great Britain -- Correspondence.
Description: This poignant work collects letters written from 1913 to 1918 between Vera Brittain and four young men - her fiance Roland Leighton, her younger brother Edward, and their two close friends, Victor Richardson and Geoffrey Thurlow - who were killed in World War I. While this correspondence inspired Testament of Youth, Brittain's classic memoir of her wartime experiences, most of the letters are published here for the first time.

Taken together, the letters present a remarkable and profoundly moving portrait of five idealistic youths caught up in the cataclysm of war. Spanning the duration of the war, the letters vividly convey the uncertainty, confusion, and almost unbearable suspense of the tumultuous war years.

They offer both male and female perspectives and reveal important historical insights by allowing the reader to witness and understand the Great War from a variety of viewpoints: that of the soldier in the trenches, of the volunteer nurse in military hospitals, and even of the civilians on the home front. As World War I fades from living memory, these letters are a powerful and stirring testament to a generation forever shattered and haunted by grief, loss, and promise unfulfilled.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. [417]-418) and index.