Florence Nightingale: the lady of the lamp

Kay Barnham (author)

Wayland Press, Hodder Children's Books, UK: 2002; 47pp

ISBN: 0750240180

Genres: biography, factual text, history, information text, non-fiction, science

Another in the Famous Lives series, this gives the interested student reader the basic facts of Nightingale's life - her childhood and social background, her discovery of nursing as a vocation, her experiences in the Crimea that taught her so much about managing people and hygiene, and the mysterious illness that was to interfere with her career for the rest of her life.

Coming from a privileged family and living in a time when women were expected to marry and have children, not live single lives as career women, Florence Nightingale's life and work was remarkable. Many writers and artists are keen to portray a thoroughly romanticised picture of a woman who was one of the most significant influences on early nursing, emphasising the nurturing, caring, ‘lady with the lamp' image. Barnham, thankfully, has shown Nightingale as a strong-minded, very human woman of great determination. She had a difficult family and faced opposition on every side when she first started nursing, yet she went on to advise the British government on ‘best practice' war nursing and more effective use of nurses in hospitals.

The text is accompanied by carefully retouched photographs, paintings and sketches from the time. These provide both historical and medical context for Nightingale's life and work. An inspirational but realistic portrayal.