Livres - Bibliographie

Mark Bostridge's Florence Nightingale is a masterful and effortlessly enjoyable biography of one of Britain's most iconic heroines.Whether honoured and admired or criticized and ridiculed, Florence Nightingale has invariably been misrepresented and misunderstood. As the Lady with the Lamp, ministering to the wounded and dying of the Crimean War, she offers an enduring image of sentimental appeal and one that is permanently lodged in our national consciousness. But the awesome scale of her achievements over the course of her 90 years is infinitely more troubling - and inspiring - than this mythical simplification.From her tireless campaigning and staggering intellectual abilities to her tortured relationship with her sister and her distressing medical condition, this vivid and immensely readable biography draws on a wealth of unpublished material and previously unseen family papers, disententagling the myth from the reality and reinvigorating with new life one of the most iconic figures in modern British history.Whether honoured and admired or criticized and ridiculed, Florence Nightingale has invariably been misrepresented and misunderstood. As the Lady with the Lamp, ministering to the wounded and dying of the Crimean War, she offers an enduring image of sentimental appeal and one that is permanently lodged in our national consciousness. But the awesome scale of her achievements over the course of her 90 years is infinitely more troubling - and inspiring - than this mythical simplification.From her tireless campaigning and staggering intellectual abilities to her tortured relationship with her sister and her distressing medical condition, this vivid and immensely readable biography draws on a wealth of unpublished material and previously unseen family papers, disententagling the myth from the reality and reinvigorating with new life one of the most iconic figures in modern British history.Mark Bostridge won the Gladstone Memorial Prize at Oxford University. His books include Vera Brittain: A Life, shortlisted for the Whitbread Biography Award; the bestselling Letters from a Lost Generation, also adapted for a BBC Radio Four series; Lives for Sale, a collection of biographers' tales that was a Radio Four 'Book of the Week'; and Because You Died, a recent selection of Vera Brittain's First World War poetry and prose.

Vera Brittain est surtout connue pour être la femme qui a immortalisé une génération perdue dans son autobiographie obsédante de la Grande Guerre, TESTAMENT OF YOUTH.

Écrivaine, pacifiste et féministe, elle a condamné ses origines provinciales mais est restée profondément consciente des éléments conventionnels de son propre caractère. elle a révélé une vie riche en émotions dans son écriture mais était en apparence sobre et réservée; elle possédait un désir féroce de célébrité et de reconnaissance, mais était prête à les sacrifier tous les deux sur des questions de principe.

Cette biographie - complète, faisant autorité et extrêmement lisible - confirme la stature de Vera Brittain comme l’une des femmes les plus remarquables de notre époque.

Vera Brittain and the First World War tells the remarkable story of the author behind Testament of Youth whilst charting the book's ascent to become one of the most loved memoirs of the First World War period. Such interest is set to expand even more in this centenary year of the war s outbreak.

In the midst of her studies at Oxford when war broke out across Europe, Vera Brittain left university in 1915 to become a V.A.D (Voluntary Aid Detachment) nurse, treating soldiers in London, Malta and Etaples in France. The events of the First World War were to have an enormous impact on her life. Four of Brittain's closest friends including her fiancé Roland Leighton and her brother Edward Brittain MC were killed in action, sparking a lifelong commitment to pacifism. In 1933 she published Testament of Youth, the first of three books dealing with her experience of war. In equal measures courageous, tragic and deeply fascinating, Testament of Youth is one of the most compelling and important works of war literature ever to have been written by a British woman.

Mark Bostridge's Vera Brittain and the First World War, published to coincide with the film of Testament of Youth, explores the effects of the First World War on Vera Brittain, both in terms of her personal life and in terms of its effect on her development as a writer and her eventual decision to become a pacifist. Taking advantage of the interest generated by the film, it will bring her story to a new generation and incorporate the most up-to-date research. It will also include a short essay 'From Book to Film', describing the process of turning Testament of Youth into a major feature film. This will include interviews with the production staff and actors, as well as with members of Vera Brittain's family, including Shirley Williams.

The film, which has been scripted by Juliette Towhidi and is being produced by BBC Films and Heyday Films, the makers of Harry Potter, is currently in production. Alicia Vikander (Anna Karenina) stars as Brittain, with Kit Harington (Game of Thrones, Pompeii) playing her fiancé Roland Leighton.