Brittain, Vera ___ 1893-1970 ___ British ___ writer

BIOGRAPHICAL SUMMARY
Brittain was born in Newcastle-under-Lyme, into a middle-class family, grew up in Macclesfield and Buxton, and was educated at Somerville College, Oxford. During the Great War, in which her fiancee, brother and many friends were killed, she worked as a Voluntary Aid Detachment nurse in Britain, France and Malta. On returning to Oxford to finish her studies, she met Winifred Holtby. After graduating in 1921, the two women moved to London where they lived together and hoped to establish themselves as writers. Her first novel, 'The Dark Tide', was published in 1923. During this period Brittain travelled extensively around Europe. In 1925, she married George Catlin, a political scientist. Soon after the marriage he was appointed a professor at Cornell University, and the two moved to the US and lived for a year in Ithaca, New York. While Catlin remained employed at Cornell until 1929 (although his association with the university continued), Brittain soon moved back to London and to living with Holtby. Brittain and Catlin had two children, a son in 1927 and a daughter in 1930. Brittain's first real writing success came in 1933 with the publication of the autobiographical 'Testament of Youth' based on her war-time diaries and her struggle for education. After Holtby's death, she wrote about their relationship in 'Testament of Friendship'. During the 1930s, and through the Second World War, Brittain expressed strong views on pacifism, and was highly critical of the allies' bombing campaigns. After the war, she wrote a history of the women's movement. She was also a strong opponent of nuclear weapons, and one of the founding members of Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. Her daughter, Shirley Williams, became a leading left-wing politician. After her death, her diaries (which had underpinned the autobiographical works) were published in several volumes.
A biography link
Wikipedia bio

DIARY DATES, CONTENT DESCRIPTORS
1913-1917 1932-1945 ___ literary military political childhood love/sex family people

WEB TEXT LINKS
a bit about
one extract
a few pages

ORIGINAL MANUSCRIPT LINKS
Oxford University: Somerville College Library
McMaster University Library

SOME PUBLISHED TITLES
Chronicle of Youth
Chronicle of Friendship
Wartime Chronicle 
 

May 2005, September 2008, March 2013
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IMPORTANT NOTES AND CAUTIONS: 1) The first line of basic information may be incomplete in several ways: some historical figures have different names (titles, pen-names); their birth and death dates may be unknown or uncertain (g - guess, c - circa); similarly, their occupations may be unknown, or they may have had other jobs; and, for early diarists, I've used 'British' a bit too freely. 2) The biographical summary may not be accurate. It was compiled quickly from various sources, mostly on the internet, and the facts were not checked anywhere near as rigorously as they would have been if they'd been intended for publication in a printed form. 3) The journal dates and descriptors (which are in no particular order) must be treated with caution: since I have not examined the diaries myself, the descriptors are only guesses based on bibliographies, anthologies and internet biographies. 4) For the biography and etext links, I have ignored any sites with charges, and I have avoided, wherever possible, those with pop-ups or too much advertising. I have limited myself to providing three etext links where there is some variety between them. 5) For the original manuscript links, I have limited myself to providing a maximum of two (although, for a few diarists, their original diaries are held in more than two places). 6) I have provided the titles - chosen randomly - for up to three printed editions of the diaries.