Florence Nightingale: The Making Of An Icon by Bostridge, Mark - 2008

UK: Viking, 2008. Hardcover. Near Fine/Very Good. 6.3 x 1.7 x 9.6 inches. Book Description 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with her sister and her distressing medical condition, this vivid and immensely readable biography draws on a wealth of unpublished material and previously unseen family papers, disententagling the myth from the reality and reinvigorating with new life one of the most iconic figures in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. Editorial Reviews From Booklist *Starred Review* Among the eminent Victorians, the figure of Florence Nightingale threatens to eclipse the celebrity of all the rest. Daughter of middling privilege and heiress to a tradition of freethinking in political, religious, and social matters, the sickly little girl had a will of steel and an unconventional view of her gender's potential. Determined to offer humanity great service, the cultivated young woman fixated on nursing, which in the mid-nineteenth century was a function strictly for lower-class servant girls. Nightingale applied considerable organizational talent and persuasive rhetoric to conquer institutional inertia and care for the Crimean War's wounded, becoming a heroine to those struggling against an entrenched and incompetent aristocracy. The British press' wildly popular pictorial broadsheets romanticized her as an angel of mercy. Insisting she never sought fame, Nightingale nevertheless became the most recognized woman in the empire save the queen herself. Nightingale applied scientific, statistically based principles to health service in general, extending her impact far beyond her time and bettering all humanity. Bostridge strips through the myth of the Lady with the Lamp, and his detailed but always compelling prose shows a remarkable woman struggling to overcome prejudice and incompetence to bring health back to soldiers' broken bodies. Without diminishing Nightingale's singular achievements, Bostridge documents how much her success relied on others' support. --Mark Knoblauch --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title. Review 'It is hard to imagine how one might improve on Bostridge's masterly understanding' Sunday Times 'A masterly work, sympathetic but even-handed, and enormously enjoyable to read' New Statesman 'Perceptive and engrossing ... a fascinating portrait' History Today 'Compellingly authoritative' Evening Standard 'A biography that triumphs' Daily Mail 'Sympathetic and vivid ... Will not be superseded for generations to come' Telegraph 'A masterly achievement ... immensely readable' Financial Times --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.