Written with the cooperation of her daughter, Shirley Williams, and based on a wealth of unpublished material and personal reminiscences, this is the first comprehensive biography of the controversial writer, pacifist and feminist. Here, in moving and evocative detail, is the full story of the catastrophic intrusion of war into Vera Brittain's early life. It throws new light on her ill-fated engagement to Roland Leighton and, in a fascinating piece of detective work, investigates the mystery surrounding the tragic circumstances of her brother Edward's death in action on the Italian front in 1918.At the heart of the post-war story is her relationship with Winifred Holtby. From Oxford in 1919 to Winifred's death in 1935, Winifred Holtby is revealed as the cornerstone of Vera's adult life, and the ties of love, dependence and, latterly, guilt, which were behind this friendship, are laid bare. The tensions in Vera Brittain's 'semi-detached' marriage to George Catlin, created by the conflicting claims of career and marriage, are sympathetically explored, as too are her passionate entanglement with an American publisher, her troubled relations with her son, and her growing pride in her daughter's political achievements.Above all, this was a life shaped by paradox. The paradox of a woman who was outspoken in her condemnation of her provincial background, but who remained acutely conscious of the conventional elements in her own character; who dramatized a richly emotional life through her writing, but whose outward facade was reserved and sober; who possessed a fierce desire for fame and recognition, but was prepared to jeopardize her literary standing during World War II in order to make a courageous protest against Britain's saturation bombing of Germany. Read Less