The Life of Florence Nightingale, vol. 1 of 2

Cook, Edward Tyas, Sir, 1857-1919Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 3.7
Word count
1.2M words
Chapters
116

Tags

English Originals Women's BiographyMedicine Public HealthNursing ProfessionHealthcare ReformBattlefield RescueEnglish SocietyFlorence NightingaleNursing PioneerSpirit of DedicationVictorian EraWomen's Achievement

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.The Life of Florence Nightingale, vol. 1 of 2 by Sir Edward Tyas CookAuthor: Cook, Edward Tyas, Sir, 1857-1919,Language: English, Class: UH: Military science: Other services, Release Date: Jul 16, 2012

Editor's review

This is the first volume of Sir Edward Tyas Cook's biography of Florence Nightingale, a free ebook from Project Gutenberg. As the first half of a two-volume biography, it generally covers the subject's early life, family upbringing, her decision to pursue nursing, and key experiences around the Crimean War. Cook, as biographer, draws on letters, archives, and other primary sources to portray character and historical context, so that readers see not only the symbol of the "Lady with the Lamp" but also a real woman struggling among family expectations, religious faith, and professional calling. The value of this volume lies in placing Nightingale within the social and military-medical context of nineteenth-century Britain; it serves as an introduction to the origins of modern nursing, Victorian public reform, and methods of biographical writing. It is best read as a documentary narrative rather than a light story, ideally alongside maps and background notes.

Who it's for

A good fit for

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Reading tips

  1. Read the table of contents and preface first to clarify the period covered, then decide which chapters to read closely.
  2. Prepare a Crimean War timeline and compare it with the subject's experiences as you read.
  3. When encountering extensive quoted letters, grasp the relationships between people first, then return to the original text.
  4. After finishing, continue with the second volume to avoid mistaking half a biography for a complete life.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

Contents

  1. 1
  2. 2
  3. 3
  4. 4
  5. 5
  6. 6
  7. 7
  8. 8
  9. 9
  10. 10
  11. 11
  12. 12
  13. 13
  14. 14
  15. 15
  16. 16
  17. 17
  18. 18
  19. 19
  20. 20
  21. 21
  22. 22
  23. 23
  24. 24
  25. 25
  26. 26
  27. 27
  28. 28
  29. 29
  30. 30
  31. 31
  32. 32
  33. 33
  34. 34
  35. 35
  36. 36
  37. 37
  38. 38
  39. 39
  40. 40
  41. 41
  42. 42
  43. 43
  44. 44
  45. 45
  46. 46
  47. 47
  48. 48
  49. 49
  50. 50
  51. 51
  52. 52
  53. 53
  54. 54
  55. 55
  56. 56
  57. 57
  58. 58
  59. 59
  60. 60
  61. 61
  62. 62
  63. 63
  64. 64
  65. 65
  66. 66
  67. 67
  68. 68
  69. 69
  70. 70
  71. 71
  72. 72
  73. 73
  74. 74
  75. 75
  76. 76
  77. 77
  78. 78
  79. 79
  80. 80
  81. 81
  82. 82
  83. 83
  84. 84
  85. 85
  86. 86
  87. 87
  88. 88
  89. 89
  90. 90
  91. 91
  92. 92
  93. 93
  94. 94
  95. 95
  96. 96
  97. 97
  98. 98
  99. 99
  100. 100
  101. 101
  102. 102
  103. 103
  104. 104
  105. 105
  106. 106
  107. 107
  108. 108
  109. 109
  110. 110
  111. 111
  112. 112
  113. 113
  114. 114
  115. 115
  116. 116

FAQ

Is this a complete biography or only half? This is the first of two volumes and covers only the first half of Nightingale's life. For a complete life, read it together with the second volume; otherwise you will have a blank impression of her later career.
Can readers with weak English read this book? This is an English public-domain book written in the biographical style of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, with long sentences and many quotations. Readers with weaker English can first use a translation or introduction to grasp the framework, then attempt the original.
What background knowledge is needed before reading? It helps to know the basic course of the Crimean War, the state of nineteenth-century British nursing, and Nightingale's general contributions to wartime medical reform. With this background, the many letters and institutional discussions will be easier to understand.
Is this book suitable for scholarly citation? As an early biography, it can be used to understand the early construction of Nightingale's image and biographical writing methods, but specific facts and views should be checked against newer research and not used as the sole basis.

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About the author

Cook, Edward Tyas, Sir, 1857-1919 Author

Edward Tyas Cook (1857–1919) was a British writer and editor best known for his two-volume The Life of Florence Nightingale. Public information about his life is limited: the records here give only his name and dates, with no details on nationality, education, or official positions. What can be confirmed is that he approached biography with scholarly care, treating a major figure in nursing and public health history with close attention to documentary evidence and historical context, in a plain and restrained style. Published in two volumes, the biography systematically traces Nightingale's life and work, offering later readers a fairly complete narrative framework for understanding this pioneer of nursing, and it is still regarded as one of the foundational works in the field.