- Paperback: 592 pages
- Publisher: Random House Trade Paperbacks; Reprint edition (Sep 13 2005)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0345451880
- ISBN-13: 978-0345451880
- Product Dimensions: 20.3 x 3.3 x 13.1 cm
- Shipping Weight: 408 g
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #176,260 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Details |
Product Description
From Booklist
*Starred Review* What Florence Nightingale--the legendary Lady with the Lamp--did for the wounded and suffering British soldiers in Crimea has long secured her place in the history books. But what she did within the circle of her own family has remained largely hidden from view. Until now. Informing careful scholarship with imaginative insight, a distinguished biographer brings to life the entire gifted but perplexing Nightingale family. Unlike biographers deafened by the acclaim for Florence's courageous medical crusade in the military hospitals of Scutari, Gill can still hear the quiet but vexed voice of a father who instilled iconoclastic bravery in his daughter only to recoil in dismay when that bravery steeled her against a favorable marriage so that she could pursue her luminous ambitions. Similarly, while other biographers focus on how Florence advanced unprecedented reforms in military sanitation and medical care by deftly orchestrating two royal commissions, Gill probes the ways that Florence's descent into invalidism during the commission years strained her already difficult relations with her sister and mother. To be sure, readers will learn much from Gill about how Florence pursued her epoch-making objectives on the broad Victorian stage--waging fierce bureaucratic warfare against obstructionists in the War Office, drafting key parliamentary speeches for sympathetic cabinet ministers. But because they can turn elsewhere for analyses of her public life, readers will appreciate this book most for its novel perspective on Florence's alternately tender and irksome dealings with her own kin. Bryce Christensen
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Review
“A dynamic and absorbing account, written in a lively and captivating manner, of a remarkable family and its even more remarkable scion, Florence Nightingale. Gill has used her sources to maximum effect, engaging the reader in a pacy narrative that brings that far distant ‘other country,’ the Victorian age, so vividly to life. I highly recommend it!”
–ALISON WEIR, author of Eleanor of Aquitaine
“Nightingales is wonderful. I will certainly never again dare to think of Florence Nightingale as ‘a lifelong spinster’ with an invalid’s need for noble self-sacrifice, but as a powerful woman who changed the course of the British government toward their own wounded forever.”
–NANCY MILFORD, author of Savage Beauty and Zelda
“Imaginatively conceived and elegantly written, Nightingales tells the compelling story of a family and an era with great style and flair. Even minor characters are wonderfully drawn and the tone is both intimate and erudite.”
–DIANE JACOBS, author of Her Own Woman: The Life of Mary Wollstonecraft
“A beautifully written and nuanced portrait . . . Gill infuses her subject with rare vitality and untangles the strands of historical, social, and personal forces that determine the course of female life. This multifaceted approach challenges the myths surrounding Nightingale’s struggle for fulfillment, giving us a fascinating window into one Victorian woman that becomes a lens through which we can view ourselves.”
–SUSAN HERTOG, author of Anne Morrow Lindbergh
“Nightingales brilliantly captures the unique intensity both of individuals and an age. Gill vividly evokes the complex and fascinating interrelations of an exceptional family. She engages her reader at every step as we travel with the fiercely intelligent and charismatic Florence Nightingale on her remarkable life journey.”
–ANNA BEER, author of My Just Desire
From the Hardcover edition.
–ALISON WEIR, author of Eleanor of Aquitaine
“Nightingales is wonderful. I will certainly never again dare to think of Florence Nightingale as ‘a lifelong spinster’ with an invalid’s need for noble self-sacrifice, but as a powerful woman who changed the course of the British government toward their own wounded forever.”
–NANCY MILFORD, author of Savage Beauty and Zelda
“Imaginatively conceived and elegantly written, Nightingales tells the compelling story of a family and an era with great style and flair. Even minor characters are wonderfully drawn and the tone is both intimate and erudite.”
–DIANE JACOBS, author of Her Own Woman: The Life of Mary Wollstonecraft
“A beautifully written and nuanced portrait . . . Gill infuses her subject with rare vitality and untangles the strands of historical, social, and personal forces that determine the course of female life. This multifaceted approach challenges the myths surrounding Nightingale’s struggle for fulfillment, giving us a fascinating window into one Victorian woman that becomes a lens through which we can view ourselves.”
–SUSAN HERTOG, author of Anne Morrow Lindbergh
“Nightingales brilliantly captures the unique intensity both of individuals and an age. Gill vividly evokes the complex and fascinating interrelations of an exceptional family. She engages her reader at every step as we travel with the fiercely intelligent and charismatic Florence Nightingale on her remarkable life journey.”
–ANNA BEER, author of My Just Desire
From the Hardcover edition.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
4.4 out of 5 stars (18 customer reviews)
23 of 24 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Victorian Lady and Victorian Saint, Sep 29 2004
By Judith J. Janone "cat man" - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Nightingales: The Extraordinary Upbringing and Curious Life of Miss Florence Nightingale (Hardcover)
NIGHTINGALES: THE EXTRAORDINARY UPBRINGING AND CURIOUS LIFE OF MISS FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE BY GILLIAN GILLBy all accounts, Florence Nightingale was a saint although she belonged to a church that did not make such claim. A privileged Victorian family of sister, mother and father nurtured this enigma. A woman from the British upper classes ventured beyond the drawing rooms, beyond the nurseries, to find vermin and rats and sewage infesting Scutari and the Crimea where she nursed soldiers at war. To read of hospital conditions during the Crimean War is one thing, to see the organization, the singleness of purpose and the dedication that manifested a turnaround in those conditions, is perhaps difficult to fathom given current medical practices. Gillian Gill portrays an ambitious if eccentric Nightingale clan whose reach extended to 10 Downing Street and Buckingham Palace. Sibling rivalry between Florence and young Parthenope was staggering. The development of relationships within the family and those working for them is fully realized. This is a fine book. Let it not be forgotten that Florence's superiors in the Crimea were all male and they watched (and fumed) while a tiny woman succeeded where they had failed. Namely in the care of the wartime solider.
Judith Janone
Burlington, Vt.
13 of 13 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Nightingales:The extraordinary Upbringing and Life of Miss F, Jan 6 2005
By G. Martyn - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Nightingales: The Extraordinary Upbringing and Curious Life of Miss Florence Nightingale (Hardcover)
Florence Nightingale's life holds a fascination for me. This is an extremely detailed read and Miss Gill's vocabulary is so extensive that one may desire a dictionary by one's side at times. The lifestyles of the families of privilege during the Victorian era painted a new portrait of a true hero, and opened windows to how those times still effect us today! The descriptions of hospital life during the Crimean War were eye-opening, as were the the illnesses in the Nightingale family were thought provoking from a medical and psycological standpoint. As a nurse myself, I am sorry I have not adequately appreciated "Flo"! Not easy reading, but worth the effort.
9 of 10 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
A model of how a biography should be written, Nov 11 2004
By David Keirsey - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Nightingales: The Extraordinary Upbringing and Curious Life of Miss Florence Nightingale (Hardcover)
This book is what it says it is: its about the Nightengales, in particular Florence Nightengale. The important aspect of this book is giving a full and clear surrounding social context of Florence. So not only does one get an better understanding of her temperament and character, but more importantly the intricate sociology of upper-class Englishmen (and women) in the 19th century european society.This broad biography helps illustrate both the importance of temperament (inborn nature of the person) and character (the developed habits of an individual based on the interaction of temperament and environment).
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