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.
This collection of Vera Brittain's poetry and prose, some of it never published before, commemorates the men she loved - fiancé, brother and two close friends - who served and died in the First World War. It draws on her experiences as a VAD nurse in London, Malta, and France, and illustrates her growing conviction of the wickedness of all war. Illustrated with many extraordinary photographs from Brittain's own albums, and edited with a new introduction by Mark Bostridge, BECAUSE YOU DIED is an elegy to men who lost their lives in a bloody conflict, and a beautiful volume of remembrance to mark the anniversary of the Armistice.
"In this book, the first major biography of Florence Nightingale in over fifty years, Mark Bostridge draws on a wealth of unpublished material, including previously unseen family papers, to throw significant new light on this extraordinary woman's life and character. By disentangling elements of myth from the reality, Bostridge has written a vivid and readable account of one of the most iconic figures in modern British history."--Jacket
From Normandy to the Caribbean Islands, this innovative biographical pursuit follows Adèle Hugo on her reckless journey of unrequited love – and the writer who chased after her a century later.