First published 1933
Vera Brittain abandons her Oxford studies in 1915 to become a military nurse. She serves in London hospitals, tends wounded soldiers in Malta, and works on the brutal Western Front. The war strips away her former life piece by piece. Her fiancé, her brother, her closest friends fall victim to the conflict that consumes Europe. By 1918, virtually everyone she cherished has died. Brittain survives but must rebuild her existence from nothing. She transforms her grief into words, creating both a detailed account of her wartime service and a memorial to an entire generation destroyed by combat. Her story captures how war reshapes those who live through it. The book stands as her tribute to the dead and her attempt to make sense of survival when so many others perished.
Genres: historical-fiction, 20th-century, war, biography-memoir
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: found-family, survival
Setting: London, Malta, Western Front
Period: 1915, 1918
688 pages · Paperback · Penguin Classics
Content warnings: death