"In the end the war did spare Vera Brittain, but her fiance, her brother and her two dearest male friends were all dead by the time the armistice was signed in November 1918. The idea for a book, however, survived. It would later become Testament of Youth, one of the most famous memoirs of the 20th century, and this year marks the 80th anniversary of its publication... Eighty years on, it remains one of the most moving books ever written about the damage of war and its continuing personal cost."