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Letters from a Lost Generation

First World War letters of Vera Brittain and four friends

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Letters from a Lost Generation

By: Mark Bostridge, Alan Bishop
Narrated by: Amanda Root, Jonathan Firth, Full Cast
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About this listen

A selection of the powerful and poignant wartime letters of Vera Brittain and her friends.

"If war spares me," wrote Vera Brittain to her brother, Edward, in 1916, "it will be my one aim to immortalise in a book the story of us four." Seventeen years later, Vera was to achieve her aim with the acclaimed Testament of Youth.

This series of letters was the inspiration behind Testament. Written between Vera; her brother; her fiancé, Roland Leighton; and their two best friends, Victor Richardson and Geoffrey Thurlow, they give a unique perspective on the most horrifying conflict the world has ever seen. They show the heartbreaking disillusionment of an idealistic public-school generation, raised on ideas of patriotism and duty, as the reality of war emerged. Yet they also give a fascinating insight into the era as a whole: their generation’s literary tastes and the place of women in society.

Read by Amanda Root, Jonathan Firth, Rupert Graves, James Wallace, and Robert Portal, and first heard on BBC Radio 4, these deeply moving letters let us hear for ourselves the voices of Vera Brittain’s lost generation.

©2014 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd (P)2014 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd Letters & Correspondence Memoirs, Diaries & Correspondence Military War

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A very moving account of the lives and slaughter of the Great War. Such losses must be remembered.

A moving Tribute to the lost Generation

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What did you like most about Letters from a Lost Generation?

Whilst heavily abridged from the original book this audible version is exceptionally well narrated. After becoming emotional over Testament of Youth this book, with the reading of their letters, brings home the horror of what Vera Brittain must of felt during that terrible war.

Very moving

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I read Testament of Youth and I saw the movie, too, and I liked them, but this collection of letters is just the best of the three. Totally true and real and moving. Completely takes the reader in.

I cannot recommend this highly enough!

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I couldn't stop listening, this is the true story of friendship, love and loss against the backdrop of that brutal war. The letters do not spare the grisly details of trench warfare or the nursing of sick and mangled men as each relates their experiences to the others. The language of the letters sounds strange, with lengthy sentences and long words, at odds with our modern method of abbreviated texts, but these were poets and scholars, writing more than a hundred years ago and is appropriate for their times. It is sad, cruel, full of love and loyalty, it will make you weep and if you know the story of Vera Brittain you will understand why she went on to write 'Testament of Youth', her tribute to the men she lost. Listen to this first, then to that. I highly recommend both for anyone wishing to understand why young men were desperate to get to the front and why Vera left her hard won place at Oxford university to play her part and be near the ones she loved.

World War I from a woman's point of view

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This is the story of the people in Vera Britain’s life who fought in the First World War, told through the letters they exchanged with Vera Britain and each other. Through the letters, we discover how the war changes the attitudes of the characters towards love and war.

The dramatization can be completed in 3 days. Go to the end of 1915 on the first day, the middle of 1917 on the second day, and the end on the third day.

My criticisms are that the sounds of war are too faint, and the readers sound older than the characters whose letters they are reading. None of this detracts from the bringing to life off the letters.

An Amazing Compilation of Lettters

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