Florence Nightingale: The Woman and Her Legend - Softcover

Bostridge, Mark

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0140263926 ISBN 13: 9780140263923

Publisher: Penguin, 2009

Synopsis

Winner of the Elizabeth Longford prize for Historical Biography

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with her sister and her distressing medical condition, this vivid and immensely readable biography draws on a wealth of unpublished material and previously unseen family papers, disentangling the myth from the reality and reinvigorating with new life one of the most iconic figures in modern British history.

About 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 Will not be superseded for generations to come' Telegraph 'A masterly achievement ...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

Book Description:

Perceptive, engrossing, fascinating ... Bostridge is to be applauded [for] this highly readable and balanced account of an extraordinary woman

About this edition

• Publisher: Penguin
• Publication date: 2009
• ISBN 10: 0140263926
• ISBN 13: 9780140263923
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 704