The Life of Florence Nightingale, Vol. 1 of 2

The legend of Florence Nightingale has calcified into myth: the lady with the lamp, the angel of Crimea. But who was she before she became an icon? This first volume of Edward Cook's definitive biography strips away the mythology to reveal the formation of a revolutionary mind. Born to a wealthy Unitarian family, Nightingale received an education unprecedented for women of her era, her father personally instructing her in mathematics, philosophy, and languages. Yet intellectual freedom brought spiritual restlessness. Through her travels across Europe, she witnessed poverty and suffering that would ignite her calling. Cook argues that the seeds of her nursing revolution were planted decades before she entered a hospital, in the lonely, privileged world of her youth where she grappled with questions of purpose, faith, and women's place in society. For readers who think they know Nightingale, this volume offers something rarer: the story of how she became herself.