Chronicle of youth: The War diary, 1913-1917

Vera Brittain's bestselling Testament of Youth was based on these copious diaries-which have far greater intimacy and immediacy. Beginning in the carefree summer of 1913, it follows the shocking onset of war, and the tragic loss of her brother, her fiancé, and most of their young friends in the fighting. Vera herself abandoned Oxford to train as a nurse, and spent the rest of the war tending to the wounded-including German prisoners. Written in London, Malta, and France, it captures all the war's horrors and Brittain's emergence as a committed pacifist. "One of the rare books which are a landmark for a whole generation."-Times Literary Supplement.