Buy Used
Used - Like New See details
Price: £1.35
Fulfilled by Amazon

or
Sign in to turn on 1-Click ordering.
 
   
Have one to sell? Sell yours here
Sorry, this item is not available in
Image not available for
Colour:
Image not available

 
Share your own customer images
Search inside this book
Tell the Publisher!
I’d like to read this book on Kindle

Don't have a Kindle? Get your Kindle here, or download a FREE Kindle Reading App.

Letters from a Lost Generation - First World War Letters of Vera Brittain and Four Friends: Roland Leighton, Edward Brittain, Victor Richardson, Geoffrey Thurlow [Paperback]

Alan Bishop (Author), Mark Bostridge (Author)
4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)

Available from these sellers.


Books Trade-In
Amazon.co.uk Trade-In Store
Did you know you can trade in your old books for an Amazon.co.uk Gift Card to spend on the things you want? Visit the Books Trade-In Store for more details. Special Offer until June 30, 2013: Receive an additional £5 promotional Gift Certificate, when you trade-in at least £10 worth of books. Learn more.

Book Description

Publication Date: 4 Nov 1999 | ISBN-10: 0349111529 | ISBN-13: 978-0349111520 | Edition: New edition

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 & 1918, between Vera Brittain and four young men - her fiance Roland Leighton, her brother Edward and their close friends Victor Richardson & 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' & his letters most clearly trace the path leading from idealism to disillusionment. Edward, ' Immaculate of the Trenches', was orderly & 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.

Product details

  • Paperback: 448 pages
  • Publisher: Abacus; New edition edition (4 Nov 1999)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0349111529
  • ISBN-13: 978-0349111520
  • Product Dimensions: 12.6 x 19.8 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 460,165 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

    •  Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?

Product Description

Amazon Review

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 fiancé 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

Review

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 )
See all Product Description
Inside This Book (Learn More)
First Sentence
In December 1911, shortly before her eighteenth birthday, Vera Brittain completed her final term at St Monica's School in Kingswood, Surrey, and returned to her parents' home in Buxton, Derbyshire. Read the first page
Explore More
Concordance
Browse Sample Pages
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
Search inside this book:

Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store

If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store. Learn more

Customer Reviews

4.6 out of 5 stars
7 reviews
4.6 out of 5 stars
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
23 of 23 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Highly recommendable, yet highly emotional, reading 31 Mar 2002
By sophie.tanner@talk21.com
This book contains hundreds of beautifully written letters, dated from 1913 to 1918. All are to, from or about Vera Brittain, her fiancée Roland Leighton, her brother Edward Brittain and their two friends, Victor Richardson and Geoffrey Thurlow. This time reveals the development of World War 1, but more the suffer and horror endured by the four young men in and out of the trenches.
"Nothing in the papers, not the most vivid and heart rending descriptions, have made me realise the war like your letters."
This passage, written by Vera Brittain to Roland Leighton as he acted as an officer in the trenches, is just one of many containing so much truth. Nothing has made me realise the war like these letters - so much is contained within them. More striking than the visible horrors of war is the raw emotion and pain of such perfect relationships as they are torn apart in such hideous circumstances. Through this intrusion into five people's lives via these breathtaking letters, we witness them growing together simply to be blown apart suddenly, unjustly, by shellfire and sniper bullets.

The five people featured are all academics at Oxford. None of them have completed their time their when the war begins, and Vera Brittain has not even started. All of them, then, are people of 'words rather than action', and had not formally considered military life. Vera becomes a V.A.D nurse after her first year at Oxford because she cannot stand being useless any longer whilst those that she loved were suffering on the country's behalf. All of the men act with the highest nobility by heading to the front as soon as they can, and becoming respected and courageous leaders....

If the same plot had been used in fiction, I would have hated the book. It would have come across as over the top in its sentiment. The honesty, emotion and pain contained in it would have come across as almost unrealistic, and the tragedy would have been just too tragic - to the point of trivialising the true horror. However, because the letters, the emotion and the pain were all real as this was written, the book does the direct opposite. In this case, it seems that truth is far, far sadder than fiction. Read more ›

Comment | 
Was this review helpful to you?
Yes
No
13 of 13 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Intensely moving: an unforgettable read 3 Nov 2000
By "chris-spriet"
After over eighty years the shattering Great War experience has all but completely slipped into oblivion . Yet reading about the tragic fate of one 'lost generation' might well knock the most hardened of cyber-readers stone-cold or, better, turn out to be one of the most heart-warming experiences conceivable.

Following an intelligent youthful fivesome in their tracks, the trade or art, let alone, ecstasy image of the war is quickly left behind as its gruesome realities cause the inevitable questions on the glorification of warfare to crop up. Centre-stage is Vera, a brave and empathic VAD nurse, who sets out to acquire her own place inside, not out of, the war. As she loses one by one of her nearest and dearest, she turns her personal involvement in the war into an attitude of uncompromising sacrifice for life.

In so doing, the book, which is ultimately an intimate war memoir, reaches greater emotional intensity and richness as one turns the pages and notices how desperately Vera is trying to come to terms with the impossible. Just that very feminine line of approach makes this book an all the more worthwhile read. There can be no doubt that this is an indispensable work and one for everyone to cherish.

Comment | 
Was this review helpful to you?
Yes
No
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Beautifully moving account of innocence in wartime 8 Feb 2000
By L. V. Smith
One of the most moving books I have read. Beautiful account of youthful exuberance as it meets war head on. Incredibly poignant to read these letters as they build up a picture of lost innocence. The inevitable loss of life comes as a real shock - it sounds cliched, but you really do feel it as you turn the pages and tragedy strikes, out of the blue, time after time.
Comment | 
Was this review helpful to you?
Yes
No
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars Too,too sad. 16 Nov 2005
By G. J. Weeks
One of the saddest books I have ever read. Four boys from the same year in their school are commissioned in the army and all die in the First World War. First to die is Vera Brittain's fiancee. Between them there was but one kiss and many letters. Last to die was her brother. Trench warfare and the horrors of nursing the wounded are described in detail. The pain of losing a generation is all too apparent.
Read and weep.
Comment | 
Was this review helpful to you?
Yes
No
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
3.0 out of 5 stars Useful for readers of 'Testament of Youth' 3 Jan 2008
By M. Shankland
The letter writers concerned are four young men, friends from public school who were all to die in the Great War: Roland Leighton, ( 1915) Geoffrey Thurlow, (1917), Victor Richardson (1917) , and Edward Brittain (1918). Their story has been told in Vera Brittain's war time memoir from 1933, `Testament of Youth', and the whole project seems to be a spin-off from the revival of the book's popularity as from the late 1970's: Though 'Testament of Youth' was virtually forgotten by the time of Brittain's death in 1970, it seems that her new generation of admirers can not get enough of her work, as her novels come back into print and diaries are published. The personal papers of four leading characters from `Testament of Youth' are now placed in the public domain.
A potential problem is that the letters are selected from a wider body of correspondence, and edited albeit by foremost specialists in Vera Brittain's work. A further concern is that the writers are communicating to each other on a private level, often under the duress of taking part in armed conflict. Whether they would have elected to have their views presented to a wide readership, or be given the status of somehow representing a `lost generation' is a concern that can not be answered. Of course the reader knows that the men are going to die, and understands the course the War would take, which makes reading the letters uncomfortable at times. The individual natures of the four men comes over well via their writing, the introduction to the book is also potentially helpful in trying to understand the mentality of the young officer class of the Great War.... Read more ›
Comment | 
Was this review helpful to you?
Yes
No
Most Recent Customer Reviews
Search Customer Reviews
Only search this product's reviews

There's a problem loading this menu at the moment.

Learn more about Amazon Prime.

    Your Shopping Basket is empty.

    Give it purpose -- fill it with books, DVDs, clothes, electronics and more.

    If you already have an account, sign in.

    There's a problem previewing your shopping basket at the moment.

    Check your Internet connection and go to your cart, or try again.

    View Shopping Basket (0 items)

      Customer Discussions

      This product's forum
      Discussion Replies Latest Post
      No discussions yet

      Ask questions, Share opinions, Gain insight
      Start a new discussion
      Topic:
      First post:
      Prompts for sign-in
       


      Active discussions in related forums
      Search Customer Discussions
      Search all Amazon discussions
         
      Related forums

      Listmania!

      Create a Listmania! list

      Look for similar items by category

      Feedback