This book was written about the famous founder of modern nursing Florence Nightingale. She and her sister Parthenope were born into an incredibly wealthy family. It is interesting how the sisters were named – Florence after the city in Italy where she was born in 1820 and her sister was born in Naples, Parthenope is the city´s name in Greek.
Their parents expected the daughters to marry wealthy men, but Florence wanted something more – to be useful. Visiting poor people with her mother in the village, she wanted to help them. At the age of seventeen she heard the voice of God, who told her to do good in the world. The oppurtunity came in 1854, when Britain was at war with Russia. The War Office, where her friend Sir Sidney Herbert was working, sent her to Turkey And Crimea. Florence designed a uniform for nurses and she and thirty-eight nurses with extra supplies crossed Europe. They entered hell. Did they escape and what became of her later in life one has to discover from the book itself.
The book is superbly illustrated and written interestingly. On the last page there are life datums of F. Nightingale. And there is a map with cities as well, where she went.
***
Published: Usborne, 2004
Illustrated: Karen Donnelly
Check from the e-catalogue ESTER.
Katrin Antonenko
Department of Literature in Foreign Languages