Between friends

These fascinating letters between Vera Brittain and Winifred Holtby tell the story of an extraordinary friendship. A literary relationship that began when the women met at Somerville College, Oxford, in 1919, it lasted until Winifred’s early death at the age of 37. The letters, written from 1920 to 1935, kept them ‘continuously together’, and show us the life of two pioneers who wished to make their mark as writers and campaigners. Each encouraged and advised the other. However, there were periods when they were literary rivals. A portrait of the inter-war years and a dramatic, touching and ultimately tragic story, the letters have the hallmarks of honest female friendship: not without friction and with its own delicate co-dependency, but life-changing for them both.