Remembering the Suffragette for Interwar Feminism: Vera Brittain’s Honourable Estate

Abstract

Abstract This article is concerned with Vera Brittain’s 1936 feminist historical novel, Honourable Estate, focusing on the novel’s efforts to represent a feminist past as it contemplates its present moment of ‘transition’. Brittain meets the difficult task of making sense of the present moment by juxtaposing two backward-looking literary forms—the feminist historical novel and the diary—which suggest two very different attitudes to temporality. The layering of these forms in Honorable Estate allows for a nuanced treatment of the new challenges and opportunities of the interwar period for modern women and creates a space for ambivalence.