Florence Nightingale: Avenging Angel by Hugh Small (Constable, £9.99 in UK)

There is already a good biography of Florence Nightingale by Cecil Woodham-Smith, but this one probes more into her deeply-held…

There is already a good biography of Florence Nightingale by Cecil Woodham-Smith, but this one probes more into her deeply-held personal and religious beliefs. It also shows convincingly that her chronic "invalidism" in later life was largely the outcome of a nervous and emotional collapse, after her return to England from the Crimean War and its horrors. She lived to be 90 and, though often bedridden, she worked steadily for reforms of various kinds. She emerges as not only one of the great Victorian heroines, but also one of the great Victorian eccentrics. As the title shows, Florence Nightingale was more than merely an Angel of Mercy, though her wartime nursing activities are what she is chiefly remembered for.