Florence Nightingale was for a time the most famous woman in Britain if not the world. We know her today primarily as a saintly character, perhaps as a heroic reformer of Britain s health-care system. The reality is more involved and far more fascinating. In an utterly beguiling narrative that reads like the best Victorian fiction, acclaimed author Gillian Gill tells the story of this richly complex woman and her extraordinary family. Born to an adoring wealthy, cultivated father and a mother whose conventional facade concealed a surprisingly unfettered intelligence, Florence was connected by kinship or friendship to the cream of Victorian England s intellectual aristocracy. Though moving in a world of ease and privilege, the Nightingales came from solidly middle-class stock with deep traditions of hard work, natural curiosity, and moral clarity. So it should have come as no surprise to William Edward and Fanny Nightingale when their younger daughter, Florence, showed an early passion for helping others combined with a precocious bent for power. Far more problematic was Florence s inexplicable refusal to marry the well-connected Richard Monckton Milnes. As Gill so brilliantly shows, this matrimonial refusal was at once an act of religious dedication and a cry for her freedom as a woman and as a leader. Florence s later insistence on traveling to the Crimea at the height of war to tend to wounded soldiers was all but incendiary especially for her older sister, Parthenope, whose frustration at being in the shade of her more charismatic sibling often led to illness. Florence succeeded beyond her wildest dreams. But at the height of her celebrity, at the age of thirty-seven, she retired to her bedroom and remained there for most of the rest of her life, allowing visitors only by appointment. Combining biography, politics, social history, and consummate storytelling,Nightingalesis a dazzling portrait of an amazing woman, her difficult but loving family, and the high Victorian era they so perfectly epitomized. Beautifully written, witty, and irresistible,Nightingalesis truly a tour de force. Distributed by Syndetic Solutions, Inc.

To focus on the well-nigh unknown family members of an icon is an audacious step for a biographer. And Gill's Nightingales does dwell in some measure on Florence's sickly, gentle sister, Parthenope ("Pop"); her stern, loving, society-minded mother, Fanny; her intellectually enterprising dilettante father, William Edward (amusingly referred to as "WEN" throughout). But never for a moment does the true focus ever seriously threaten to abandon the endlessly fascinating "Flo." No, the true leap here is Gill's steadfast intentness on placing Nightingale in her full context, both familial and societal (which ceaselessly overlap) and her brazenly intimate approach to storytelling. We hear a great deal about Nightingale's family members, both nuclear and extended, an intelligent and industrious upper-class British family that didn't quite know what to do with this delightful tornado of a woman. Equally intelligent and driven (and, unsurprisingly, guilt plagued), Nightingale early on was given a strong dose of true intellectual freedom by her father and ever after chafed at the role life expected of her as dutiful wife and mother. Reflexively obeying her holy visions, she instead foreswore sex of any kind and threw herself into nursing and health-care reform, much to the embarrassment of her immediate family-and to the gratitude of the generations of emancipated women to follow. The book is expansive, richly detailed, generous to a fault; Gill's skills may well set a new standard for the novelistic mode of biography. She attends scrupulously to the voluminous paper trail Flo left behind and frequently introduces her "I" to speculate, conjecture, argue, scold. Fortunately, Gill's knowledge of the era is so profound, her judgment so sound, and her narrative voice so cozy that it transforms this saint's life into an enveloping treat that serious readers will delight in plumbing. Photos not seen by PW. 50,000 first printing. Agent, Jill Kneering. (Sept.) Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information. From: Reed Elsevier Inc. Copyright Reed Business Information

Gill (Agatha Christie: The Woman and Her Mysteries) here examines the life of Florence Nightingale in the context of her culture and extended family. Gill's treatment is based on solid research and includes frank discussions of such controversial issues as Nightingale's rejection of suitors, putative homosexuality, and the psychological vs. medical causes for the nearly half century she spent as an invalid after her return from the Crimea. What results is an informative and highly readable portrait of a charismatic if flawed woman and the well-connected family that at first stifled but ultimately fueled her public work. This is also a study of politics, women's lives, and family dynamics in the Victorian era. Highly recommended for all academic and many public libraries, even those that already own current biographies such as Barbara Montgomery Dossey's Florence Nightingale: Mystic, Visionary, Reformer. [See Prepub Alert, LJ 5/1/04.]-Theresa McDevitt, Indiana Univ. of Pennsylvania Lib. Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information. From: Reed Elsevier Inc. Copyright Reed Business Information

Not just another biography, this is a book about Nightingale and her place in an extended family. It emphasizes just how confining the lives of most women were in her time and what Nightingale did to break through female stereotypes, even though this process often resulted in considerable estrangement from her family. Still, her family supported her, and in fact she could not have accomplished what she did without economic support from her father, who somewhat neglected his other daughter to provide it. So all-consuming were Nightingale's causes that she tried to ration visits by family members and limit the topics they could discuss so that she would not be distracted from her work. Nevertheless, when her mother was confined to bed, Florence took it as her duty to serve as her nurse and spent most of 1872 taking care of her. Even when others stepped in, and even when her mother no longer recognized her, she continued to keep informed of her mother's needs and conditions. In short, this well-written, heavily documented, and extremely readable book offers a different picture of Nightingale; it makes a significant contribution to a better understanding of this powerful woman who brought about radical changes. ^BSumming Up: Recommended. All levels. V. L. Bullough emeritus, California State University, Northridge From: Syndetics Solutions, Inc. Distributed by Syndetic Solutions, Inc.