Kathryn Ecclestone: Testament of Lost Youth - The Early Life and Loves of Vera Brittain

Thursday 29 May, 5:00pm, QUAD DE1 3AS

This event will be filmed and made available as a digital recording after the Festival. Available for purchase here.

Vera Brittain is one of the 20th century’s most significant feminist and pacifist figures. Her 1933 best-selling First World War memoir, Testament of Youth, is acclaimed as one of the most important autobiographies of the last 100 years. 

Testament of Lost Youth is the first book to examine Vera’s cossetted middle-class upbringing in Buxton, between 1905 and 1915. She condemned her 'provincial young ladyhood' with remorseless fervour, but were her criticisms justified, or is there a more complex, nuanced story? 

Drawing on Vera's own diary, letters and a wealth of historical sources, Kathryn Ecclestone uncovers the hidden layers of Vera's privileged early life, challenging traditional portrayals to shed new light on the unique social atmosphere of Edwardian Buxton, Vera's schooling and experience of university, her family, social and love life, before a harrowing journey through the First World War, where she lost her fiancé, adored brother and many friends and acquaintances. It presents a rich exploration of how this period shaped and inspired the remarkable woman the world came to know.