Justly famous as the founder of modern nursing, Florence Nightingale's fame has endured from the 1950s until today. The two books under review here provide ample evidence as to why this should be so. As both author and editor Lynn McDonald has spent much of her professional career probing virtually every aspect of Nightingale's ninety years of life. And what an amazingly productive life it was, which Nightingale's sixteen-volume Collected Works—edited principally by McDonald—makes clear. But if the received public image of Nightingale continues to be that of the Lady of the Lamp,” then both her own Suggestions for Thought and McDonald's short biography—published to mark the centenary of Nightingale's death—show her to have been a hard-headed, clear-thinking reformer, in addition to a heroic nurse.... The Nightingale project ranks with both the Gladstone diaries and the Disraeli letters as a major undertaking in the field of Victorian-era scholarship, and therefore is of surpassing value to historians of the period, as well as to general readers.

Lynn McDonald, director of the Collected Works of Florence Nightingale, is university professor emerita at the University of Guelph. She is an environmentalist, a former member of parliament, a former president of the National Action Committee on the Status of Women, and a long-time activist on womens issues. She has an honorary doctorate from York University.

Table of Contents for Florence Nightingale at First Hand by Lynn McDonald
List of Figures
List of Illustrations
Preface
Dramatis Personae
A Quick Sketch of Florence Nightingale’s Life
1. The Making of Florence Nightingale
Faith and Church
Domestic Arrangements, Friends, the Arts
Illness and Working Style
Companion Animals and Love of Nature
Last Days, Will and Death
2. The Social Reformer
Science, Law and Probability
Social Class, Government and Politics
Women and Family
Suggestions for Thought
3. War
The Crimean War
Nightingale’s “Confidential Report”
War Office Reform
The Geneva Convention, the Franco-Prussian War and Militarism
Militarism and the Causes of War
4. Health Care, Nursing and Midwifery
Nightingale’s Approach to Health and Healing
The Nightingale System of Nursing
The Influence of Nightingale Nursing Worldwide
The Evolution of Nursing Practice
Midwifery Training and Maternity Care
District Nursing
5. Workhouse Infirmaries and Hospitals
Workhouse Infirmary Reform
Safer Hospitals
6. India and Empire
Imperialism, Racism and Independence
Famine
Indian Women
7. Nightingale’s Legacy
Endnotes
Recommended Sources on Florence Nightingale
Index