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Flight of the Wild Swan
A majestic novel of Florence Nightingale, whose courage, self-confidence, and resilience transformed nursing and the role of women in medicine
Sweeping yet intimate, Flight of the Wild Swan tells the story of Florence Nightingale, a brilliant, trailblazing woman whose humanity has been obscured beneath the iconic weight of legend. From adolescence, Nightingale was determined to fulfill her life’s calling to serve the sick and suffering. Overcoming Victorian hierarchies, familial expectations, patriarchal resistance, and her own illness, she used her hard-won acclaim as a battlefield nurse to bring the profession out of its shadowy, disreputable status and elevate nursing to a skilled practice and compassionate art.
In lush, lyrical detail, Melissa Pritchard reveals Nightingale as a rebel who wouldn’t relent—one whose extraordinary life offers a grand lesson in inspired will.
Sweeping yet intimate, Flight of the Wild Swan tells the story of Florence Nightingale, a brilliant, trailblazing woman whose humanity has been obscured beneath the iconic weight of legend. From adolescence, Nightingale was determined to fulfill her life’s calling to serve the sick and suffering. Overcoming Victorian hierarchies, familial expectations, patriarchal resistance, and her own illness, she used her hard-won acclaim as a battlefield nurse to bring the profession out of its shadowy, disreputable status and elevate nursing to a skilled practice and compassionate art.
In lush, lyrical detail, Melissa Pritchard reveals Nightingale as a rebel who wouldn’t relent—one whose extraordinary life offers a grand lesson in inspired will.
380 pages, Kindle Edition
First published March 12, 2024
127 people are currently reading
1175 people want to read
About the author
Melissa Pritchard
26 books76 followersFLIGHT OF THE WILD SWAN, Bellevue Literary Press,
March 2024, RB Media audiobook
- Book Award Finalist: Last Syllable, Longform Literary Journal (winner announced 12/25)
- A Favorite Book of 2024: The Washington Independent Review of Books
- 2025 Georgia Author of the Year Finalist, Literary Fiction
-* Portland Book Review, "The writing is beautiful, stark and luxuriant by turns."
_ New York Times, "Best Historical Fiction"
_ New York Sun, "A standout."
- NPR/GPB's Peter Biello, All Things Considered: "...an amazing book. Just an incredible book."
- Denver Post, "An awe-inspiring story."
_ *Publishers Weekly, starred, Featured Fiction.
_ *Kirkus Review, starred.
_ *Foreword Reviews, starred, "An inspiring novel."
- Atlanta Journal Constitution, "An addictive read..."
_ Historical Novel Society, "Powerful...a significant tribute."
_ LibraryThing Review
_ Booklist, "A compelling human portrait of an extraordinary woman."
_ Historical Novels Review, "Powerful."
- Atlanta Journal Constitution, "An addictive read..."
_ Midwest Book Review, "Exceptional."
_ BookBrowse TOP PICK, "...a tremendously written novel...a story to read, reread, and share with others."
- A "Reading with Arizona PBS selection"
- Southern Literary Review: "Rich and detailed...exceptional!"
AWARDS: 2025 Georgia Author of the Year Finalist, Flannery O'Connor, Carl Sandburg, Janet Kafka, NEA, five Pushcart and O.Henry Prizes, Barnes & Noble Great Writers Award, Carson McCullers Fellow. Fiction, non-fiction in Paris Review, Ecotone, A Public Space, Conjunctions, LitMag, Southern Review, O the Oprah Magazine, Wilson Quarterly, the Nation, Chicago Tribune, NYTBR, others. Frequently anthologized. Fiction editor: IMAGE
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 80 reviews
January 18, 2024
Keep the scientist, the statistician, the nurse. Preserve the myth. History a jumble of half-truths anyway. Let the fire eat her rage, her failures. Let her become what each generation needs her to be. A light to lead the others.
from Flight of the Wild Swan by Melissa Pritchard
This is the story of Florence Nightingale, one of the most remarkable women in history.
This is the story of a brilliant mind who chafed at society’s restricted roles for women and who believed she was the hands of God, called to heal.
This is the story of despair and torment. Florence was born to a comfortable life, expected to marry and produce a male heir to inherit her father’s estate. But she was drowning in the life of fireside gossip and tea. Only when her despair had reached it zenith was she allowed leaway to follow her dreams of becoming a nurse.
This is a story of conviction and courage, of self-denial and servitude. She went into hell on earth, the battlefield hospitals and dead houses, and ministered to the war wounded with dignity and care. When she arrived in Crimea, more soldiers were dying from disease than in battle. She brought cleanliness, healthy food, hope. The changes she instituted vastly reduced the death rate.
Sanitation, hygiene, statistics–these are my earthly Deities.
from Flight of the Wild Swan by Melissa Pritchard
This is a story of higher calling, of a universal faith. On a trip to Egypt her understanding of a higher power was broadened, deepened, became encompassing. She listened for God’s voice to lead her, but adhered to no one doctrine.
She shunned her growing fame, suppressed her own needs, was driven to work and serve past human endurance. Even after her health broke down, she continued her reform work, using her beloved mathematics and statistics to institute groundbreaking medical practices.
In the novel, a doctor complains about the “poor chaps” who were “bribed by a shilling and a pint of beer” and “marched into the field and slaughter.” He asks, “For what? For the queen. For land and sea. For pride of empire. For that and that alone, a generation dies.” And Florence is conflicted about her role as nurse, knowing that once recovered, her patients would be sent back to the front. She could not rest, but spent her nights in the wards, lighting her way with a lantern, becoming the mythic Lady of the Lamp as she ministered to the suffering.
Florence Nightingale soared into history and legend, but in these pages you will meet a very human, conflicted, inspired, unforgettable woman. From the claustrophobia of her family to the pestilence of the Scutari hospital, Pritchard pens haunting scenes, and the letters and diary entries in Florence’s voice brings her into vivid profile.
Thanks to the publisher for a free book.
from Flight of the Wild Swan by Melissa Pritchard
This is the story of Florence Nightingale, one of the most remarkable women in history.
This is the story of a brilliant mind who chafed at society’s restricted roles for women and who believed she was the hands of God, called to heal.
This is the story of despair and torment. Florence was born to a comfortable life, expected to marry and produce a male heir to inherit her father’s estate. But she was drowning in the life of fireside gossip and tea. Only when her despair had reached it zenith was she allowed leaway to follow her dreams of becoming a nurse.
This is a story of conviction and courage, of self-denial and servitude. She went into hell on earth, the battlefield hospitals and dead houses, and ministered to the war wounded with dignity and care. When she arrived in Crimea, more soldiers were dying from disease than in battle. She brought cleanliness, healthy food, hope. The changes she instituted vastly reduced the death rate.
Sanitation, hygiene, statistics–these are my earthly Deities.
from Flight of the Wild Swan by Melissa Pritchard
This is a story of higher calling, of a universal faith. On a trip to Egypt her understanding of a higher power was broadened, deepened, became encompassing. She listened for God’s voice to lead her, but adhered to no one doctrine.
She shunned her growing fame, suppressed her own needs, was driven to work and serve past human endurance. Even after her health broke down, she continued her reform work, using her beloved mathematics and statistics to institute groundbreaking medical practices.
In the novel, a doctor complains about the “poor chaps” who were “bribed by a shilling and a pint of beer” and “marched into the field and slaughter.” He asks, “For what? For the queen. For land and sea. For pride of empire. For that and that alone, a generation dies.” And Florence is conflicted about her role as nurse, knowing that once recovered, her patients would be sent back to the front. She could not rest, but spent her nights in the wards, lighting her way with a lantern, becoming the mythic Lady of the Lamp as she ministered to the suffering.
Florence Nightingale soared into history and legend, but in these pages you will meet a very human, conflicted, inspired, unforgettable woman. From the claustrophobia of her family to the pestilence of the Scutari hospital, Pritchard pens haunting scenes, and the letters and diary entries in Florence’s voice brings her into vivid profile.
Thanks to the publisher for a free book.
March 24, 2024
I don't read very much historical fiction, primarily because I don't like not knowing what is fiction and what is historically close to accurate. But I enjoyed this book very much and recommend it for everyone (noting no reviews from guys yet). Nightingale's life is both interesting and important. A role model for everyone on trying to live a life of purpose and integrity. We need those role models these days, I feel.
On a technical note, the book is divided into dozens of short chapters, some only a paragraph long, like a journal entry. That made it an excellent book to read when I only had minutes to read (like on the bus to/from work or when I knew I was too tired at night to read a long chapter of any other book before falling asleep. The other advantage of the structure and writing was that I found myself reading many more chapters and sections more than I anticipated when I picked it up.
I want to take a moment to thank my public library for allowing me to suggest they purchase this title, and reserve it prior to publication. I had it the same day it was released and can return it for more people to enjoy, regardless of their economic ability to purchase the book themselves.
I can also see people wanting to purchase a copy to gift to any young girl or boy showing the compassion and intellect to pursue a life of service, but lacking the courage or role model to attempt it, particularly if facing resistance from parents and friends who have expectations for them to follow more traditional paths.
On a technical note, the book is divided into dozens of short chapters, some only a paragraph long, like a journal entry. That made it an excellent book to read when I only had minutes to read (like on the bus to/from work or when I knew I was too tired at night to read a long chapter of any other book before falling asleep. The other advantage of the structure and writing was that I found myself reading many more chapters and sections more than I anticipated when I picked it up.
I want to take a moment to thank my public library for allowing me to suggest they purchase this title, and reserve it prior to publication. I had it the same day it was released and can return it for more people to enjoy, regardless of their economic ability to purchase the book themselves.
I can also see people wanting to purchase a copy to gift to any young girl or boy showing the compassion and intellect to pursue a life of service, but lacking the courage or role model to attempt it, particularly if facing resistance from parents and friends who have expectations for them to follow more traditional paths.
July 10, 2024
As a girl, I read I-don't-know-how-many Florence Nightingale bios, but they were largely the kind of hagiography handed out to children and nothing like Melissa Pritchard's Flight of the Wild Swan. Fictional biography is an odd genre because one wants to read it as truth, but one can't do that. I don't know how much the "real" Nightingale was like the Nightingale Pritchard gives us, but Pritchard's Nightingale is an excellent woman to spend time with: fierce, brilliant, furious about the limitations placed on her sex, querulous, impatient with family, and unrelenting in pursuit of the life she has envisioned for herself.
Flight of the Wild Swan—like many Bellevue Literary Press titles—is a book that helps us see beyond the simpler versions of stories we think we're familiar with. It offers an excellent read.
I received a free electronic review copy of this title from the publisher via Edelweiss; the opinions are my own.
Flight of the Wild Swan—like many Bellevue Literary Press titles—is a book that helps us see beyond the simpler versions of stories we think we're familiar with. It offers an excellent read.
I received a free electronic review copy of this title from the publisher via Edelweiss; the opinions are my own.
March 27, 2024
Such an exquisite book! I've just finished it--a novel of
beautiful, lyrical prose that reads like a dream vision, as if
Melissa Pritchard were channeling Florence Nightingale
for real. Pritchard is always a most lyric prose writer, but the
thorough research she conducted, so delicately fretting the novel's drama,
and so beautifully enriching her characterization of Nightingale
helps to bring the story, the wages of war and destruction,
to such fraught and harrowing life. I could not put down
this extraordinary portrait of life lived at the extreme,
not only the life of a woman who wished to do some good in the world,
to contribute, but how by force of her determination, she overcame all
odds to pursue her vision.
beautiful, lyrical prose that reads like a dream vision, as if
Melissa Pritchard were channeling Florence Nightingale
for real. Pritchard is always a most lyric prose writer, but the
thorough research she conducted, so delicately fretting the novel's drama,
and so beautifully enriching her characterization of Nightingale
helps to bring the story, the wages of war and destruction,
to such fraught and harrowing life. I could not put down
this extraordinary portrait of life lived at the extreme,
not only the life of a woman who wished to do some good in the world,
to contribute, but how by force of her determination, she overcame all
odds to pursue her vision.
November 17, 2024
There is so much to say about Nightingale. She is fascinating. Beautiful and wealthy, she hobnobbed with the leaders of the day, several who fell in love with her despite her unfeminine interests in math and medicine. She was a classic difficult woman and she had the standard problems: Her family worried for her sanity and wanted her to produce a son to inherit. It’s not that she ignored her family’s desires, but when she was forced to, she became very despondent. Her father was a cool guy for the time and finally relented, allowing her to attend nursing school (gasp) in Germany. Needless to say, a nursing school in Great Britain was unthinkable!
You know who was whack a doodle? Her older sister who became nearly suicidal when Florence left. Let’s just say that in that time and place, women were very stressed and led Freud to possibly inaccurate conclusions.
Obviously, she was difficult. But only in pursuing her interests, which was helped along by a religious awakening at 17. She wasn’t trying to upend the social order but she could see places where she could help.
Great Britain was at the top of their imperialist game, which is where things start coming apart for them. The military was then a very top down, inflexible organization. Very self satisfied. Then came the Crimean War. More imperial politics. And look! People were literally starving in pesky Ireland, so tons of young men desperate for any kind of work! Obviously, it was only going to last a few months. The resulting catastrophic failures are well documented (e.g. the Charge of the Light Brigade). And wouldn’t you just know it? A bloody Irish dude started writing exposes.
And like a miracle, this absurd woman, Florence Nightingale (how perfect is that name!) appears after performing well regarded reforms at a London hospital for women. And she in turn, had this very Maid of Orleans calling from God though she never advertised the fact.
This is where I start believing in miracles because the situation was dire in the Crimean military hospitals, the English ones, as the French were more progressive.
You know who was whack a doodle? Her older sister who became nearly suicidal when Florence left. Let’s just say that in that time and place, women were very stressed and led Freud to possibly inaccurate conclusions.
Obviously, she was difficult. But only in pursuing her interests, which was helped along by a religious awakening at 17. She wasn’t trying to upend the social order but she could see places where she could help.
Great Britain was at the top of their imperialist game, which is where things start coming apart for them. The military was then a very top down, inflexible organization. Very self satisfied. Then came the Crimean War. More imperial politics. And look! People were literally starving in pesky Ireland, so tons of young men desperate for any kind of work! Obviously, it was only going to last a few months. The resulting catastrophic failures are well documented (e.g. the Charge of the Light Brigade). And wouldn’t you just know it? A bloody Irish dude started writing exposes.
And like a miracle, this absurd woman, Florence Nightingale (how perfect is that name!) appears after performing well regarded reforms at a London hospital for women. And she in turn, had this very Maid of Orleans calling from God though she never advertised the fact.
This is where I start believing in miracles because the situation was dire in the Crimean military hospitals, the English ones, as the French were more progressive.
April 7, 2024
Flight of the Wild Swan, by Melissa Pritschard. An extraordinary novel of the life of Florence Nightingale, a pioneer on having women participate in society on a professional way through nursing. It’s a story of courage, resilience and of not stopping even when everything appears against her. Her involvement in reform and opening the opportunities for women is outstanding.
April 25, 2024
"Those lesser-known aspects of her identity (Florence Nightingale) are what ASU Professor Emeritus of English Melissa Pritchard hopes to bring to light in her new book, “Flight of the Wild Swan.”
I found this novel extraordinary--Ms Nightingale became real and more humanistic to me. I believe even non nurses would enjoy the story of her life. She was an unusually progressive woman during the Victorian era.
I found this novel extraordinary--Ms Nightingale became real and more humanistic to me. I believe even non nurses would enjoy the story of her life. She was an unusually progressive woman during the Victorian era.
September 2, 2024
Being a nurse, I was fascinated with Florence and this book certainly placed her in time and portrayed what a progressive, driven person she was. I found the book format to be very slow and hard to get through until the last 50 pages, which is why I only gave it 3 stars. I would have given 3.5 if it was available as an option.
Read
March 29, 2024“Hunger is never a performance.” All of the pomp, pretension, avidity, and cloying spirituality of the Victorian era are captured in that page 116 epigram. Melissa Pritchard has enshrined the era in her characterization of its most enduring heroine, Florence Nightingale. This is the novel of the year, of last year, and of next year. This is a novel for the ages.
May 30, 2024
From a young age, Florence Nightingale clearly chose a different path from most upper-class Victorian women. How she became what we know her as – the Lady of the Lamp, and the founder of the nursing profession – is the subject of Melissa Pritchard’s fictionalized biography. The known facts and timelines of Nightingale’s life form the skeleton of this novel; but the flesh is applied by Pritchard through imagined diary entries, correspondence, conversations, and Florence’s first-person narration. Nightingale’s efforts during the catastrophe that was the Crimean War are here, but the greater part of this novel follows the path she took that led her from her early years as a clever but odd child, through her young adult years navigating family and societal expectations, to her arrival in Constantinople in 1854 at the age of 34. Fascinating reading!
March 28, 2024
A deeply feminist novel that questions assumptions about visibility, identity - what it means to be seen/unseen as a woman. Symphonic, superbly structured. The ending of the novel will bowl you over. Pritchard at her finest.
May 5, 2024
A view into Florence Nightengale that most have never seen before. Highly researched and an incredible read!
abandoned
September 7, 2025this was an older IPL press from The Currently Reading Podcast, which means i really wanted to love it. sadly, the words didn’t flow, and they felt clunky on the page, leaving me to DNF.
April 1, 2024
Fascinating story of a legend told in letters & journals that seemed entirely authentic. I devoured it as I did many a 19th Century epistolary novel.
The prose is nuanced and vivid, and I learned more than I expected to. I had to Google the Crimean War 😂 (Russia, always the villain). Takeaways: War is hell; it’s hard to be a woman; listen to God (who is not a patriarch in her schema). Historical fiction, when brilliantly researched? Very gratifying. Another genre I would like to explore more.
And lo and behold, she studied medicine (such as it was) in Kaiserswerth — a part of Düsseldorf where I stayed in 2023 Jan. I walked by the old hospital building during my stay, having no idea how it was connected to the woman who founded modern nursing.
The prose is nuanced and vivid, and I learned more than I expected to. I had to Google the Crimean War 😂 (Russia, always the villain). Takeaways: War is hell; it’s hard to be a woman; listen to God (who is not a patriarch in her schema). Historical fiction, when brilliantly researched? Very gratifying. Another genre I would like to explore more.
And lo and behold, she studied medicine (such as it was) in Kaiserswerth — a part of Düsseldorf where I stayed in 2023 Jan. I walked by the old hospital building during my stay, having no idea how it was connected to the woman who founded modern nursing.
July 23, 2024
I kept coming back to this, not enjoying its episodic brief chapters that prolonged the book in a way that wasn't necessary. While I admired the intimate historical portrayal, it was just too hard to read. Nightingale was an extraordinary woman and deserves an examined life, but felt there was a better way to structure it.
June 25, 2024
Wonderfully written historical fiction about Florence Nightingale. Pritchard brings her to life and makes her both saintly and human. The times and places come alive in her words and I’m in the process of finding what else she has written as this was so well done.
March 19, 2024
History is a jumble of half truths.
Let her become what each generation needs her to be. A light to lead others.
Who can cure this gnawing hunger to know God's will?
I have no interest in marriage. I am grateful that my cousin, at least, appreciates an intelligent woman.
Mathematics is a sacred language.
I am no use to anyone. Increasingly the thought: Why live at all?
Who am I if not an an elite hypocrite, protected by privilege?
Life is a weary old riddle. Yet how fiercely we cling to the least shred of it.
Let her become what each generation needs her to be. A light to lead others.
Who can cure this gnawing hunger to know God's will?
I have no interest in marriage. I am grateful that my cousin, at least, appreciates an intelligent woman.
Mathematics is a sacred language.
I am no use to anyone. Increasingly the thought: Why live at all?
Who am I if not an an elite hypocrite, protected by privilege?
Life is a weary old riddle. Yet how fiercely we cling to the least shred of it.
April 27, 2024
Fascinating tale of the great Florence Nightingale, whose pioneering work seems almost forgotten now but deserves much more. Generously filled with her own writings.
November 29, 2024
I really liked this! I learned so much about Florence Nightingale and the decades she lived and the Crimean War and medicine at the time. A heavily researched historical fiction; my favorite genre!
May 22, 2024
Florence Nightingale has always been a hero of mine (I've written a journal article about moral exemplars with a specific reference to her) and I was thrilled that this book considers her real life (warts and all). She was a little fussy, but she was a supreme organizer when one was needed during the Crimean War. Her work, her relationship with Mr. Herbert, her family and her refusal to lower her standards are all considered here in short chapters that make this a very readable novel. Highly recommended...
May 26, 2024
Who knew? A bit different from my elementary school book reports on Florence Nightingale!
May 18, 2024
I thought it was extremely well-written and moving. I know Pritchard did an immense amount of research, but I am very curious as to what in the novel was pulled directly from letters and journals.
I mainly gave it 5 instead of 4 stars because I so rarely enjoy current publications. If I were to read up on Nightingale, especially her faith, it might drop to 4, but I would definitely recommend it to anyone.
I mainly gave it 5 instead of 4 stars because I so rarely enjoy current publications. If I were to read up on Nightingale, especially her faith, it might drop to 4, but I would definitely recommend it to anyone.
June 4, 2024
A novel of the early life and Crimean war achievements of Florence Nightingale. I found the latter half of the book more compelling than the first half, which documented Nightingale's upper class adolescence and, in her 20's and early 30's, her attempts to convince her parents that she felt she had a mission to be a nurse. Her family hoped only for a good marriage, a goal she wasn't interested in. Her years in Crimea were more interesting, showing her struggle as a woman to be given respect by men who had power over her and placed endless obstacles in her path. Her passion for comforting wounded and dying soldiers was heralded in England, however, so she slowly achieved some of her goals in improving soldiers' quality of care. She did the sort of practical things that male administrators would never think of: writing letters home for dying soldiers, setting up reading rooms for convalescent soldiers so they had activities other than drinking, arranging that soldiers could send their pay home to their families. Her later career is not covered in this book, but I liked that the author included her experience recording her voice on one of Edison's earliest recording phonographs. I enjoyed the book, especially the latter half, where I learned a great deal about a remarkable woman who paved the way for so many women after her.
May 15, 2024
Normally I don’t read historical fiction but this was beautifully written and thought-provoking.
May 14, 2024
Absolutely amazing!! gorgeously written it flows like a cloud in a dream. her life was truly like no other and her strength was unimaginable.
June 13, 2024
Historical fiction that is more than a costume drama/romance by Kristin Hannah and writers of the historical fictions with women walking away on the cover.
June 20, 2024
First of all, a confession. There is no way in hell I ever would have bought, much less read, a novel about Florence Nightingale, if I didn’t know Melissa Pritchard. To know her is to love her. But I read Flight of the Wild Swan over the weekend and I’m happy to say that I loved it too. So here we go.
Into our present age of narcissism, hypocritical evangelism, and very real spiritual hunger. Into our age of darkness tinged with genocide, racism, and misogyny. Into the 21st century, through the alchemy of writer Melissa Pritchard, walks Florence Nightingale, bearing her legendary lantern, to light our way. What an unlikely heroine! And yet a heroine nonetheless. No reader will come away from this novel uninspired. Florence Nightingale, we learn, was quite literally on a mission from God, her God, and it’s one she readily accepted at the age of seventeen. She saw suffering and refused to ignore it. If God is love, her life was a compassionate prayer. She walked her talk. Her church was the Victorian world she lived in and later the horrors of the Crimean War. To quote her, “Joy’s soul lies in the doing.” Love for Florence was an action and she lived her faith selflessly, throughout her days. And here’s a good place to say there’s not a single page of Christian proselytizing in this novel. If anything, Nightingale is a feminist action figure and this is her movie, captured on the page. The novel moves and it’s moving, most especially when it descends into the insanity and hell of war. It’s there that Florence gives us a sacrament to live by, believers and non-believers alike. “In the smallest acts I might glimpse the face of God.” To receive and give love. Love as sacred reciprocity. This novel will lift you up and answer one of humanity’s most basic ongoing prayers. Lord, teach us how to live within our darkness. To do the boundless research needed to so beautifully imagine this novel’s particular places and times, and Florence Nightingale’s singular heart and mind. This is a stunning achievement by Pritchard, a labor of love in and of itself, one readers will thank her for.
Into our present age of narcissism, hypocritical evangelism, and very real spiritual hunger. Into our age of darkness tinged with genocide, racism, and misogyny. Into the 21st century, through the alchemy of writer Melissa Pritchard, walks Florence Nightingale, bearing her legendary lantern, to light our way. What an unlikely heroine! And yet a heroine nonetheless. No reader will come away from this novel uninspired. Florence Nightingale, we learn, was quite literally on a mission from God, her God, and it’s one she readily accepted at the age of seventeen. She saw suffering and refused to ignore it. If God is love, her life was a compassionate prayer. She walked her talk. Her church was the Victorian world she lived in and later the horrors of the Crimean War. To quote her, “Joy’s soul lies in the doing.” Love for Florence was an action and she lived her faith selflessly, throughout her days. And here’s a good place to say there’s not a single page of Christian proselytizing in this novel. If anything, Nightingale is a feminist action figure and this is her movie, captured on the page. The novel moves and it’s moving, most especially when it descends into the insanity and hell of war. It’s there that Florence gives us a sacrament to live by, believers and non-believers alike. “In the smallest acts I might glimpse the face of God.” To receive and give love. Love as sacred reciprocity. This novel will lift you up and answer one of humanity’s most basic ongoing prayers. Lord, teach us how to live within our darkness. To do the boundless research needed to so beautifully imagine this novel’s particular places and times, and Florence Nightingale’s singular heart and mind. This is a stunning achievement by Pritchard, a labor of love in and of itself, one readers will thank her for.
August 12, 2024
The books I read are very much determined by the books that happen to be lying around the house, and these are determined by my spouse's reading preferences more than my own. In a million years I would not have picked up a book about Florence Nightingale, had my spouse not recommended it in the strongest terms. I was amply rewarded. This creative imagining of a life within the framework of a known biography is beautifully written.
Melissa Pritchard imagines Nightingale's life in part by imagining the letters she sends and receives. Around the framework of known facts, from her origins at the very pinnacle of the British upper-class, to her struggle with her family to enter the lowly field of charitable nursing, to her search for religious meaning and her refusal of marriage, to her work in the hospitals of the Crimean war where she became famous, Pritchard paints her life, the dialogue and banter of family members and soldiers, and an entire human personality.
As a reader, I really wanted to know whether the many italicized documents and letters really were Nightingale's or not. I want to believe that they were, but I have doubts.
Nightingale believed that statistics were the road to God.
She was an administrator of hospital systems and believed that efficient administration saved lives.
She changed the British approach to wartime medical care.
During and after the Crimean war she worked with her partner, Sidney Herbert, 1st Baron Herbert of Lea, a highly placed politician whom the author intimates (presumably based on letters and documentary evidence) was the chaste and secret love of Nightingale's life. They were allies in a shared cause until his death in 1861.
Nightingale was a member of the pinnacle of British society. It was only from this position of extreme privilege that she was able to accomplish what she did. Pritchard portrays her as being aware of, and uncomfortable with, her privilege, and yet as one who believed that she must do what her position enabled her to do.
In this touching reading, she never forgot the thousands upon thousands of soldiers that she tended as they lay dying in the infirmaries of the Crimean war. At the end of her life in the early 1900s it was those faces that she remembered above all.
This is a really gripping read.
Melissa Pritchard imagines Nightingale's life in part by imagining the letters she sends and receives. Around the framework of known facts, from her origins at the very pinnacle of the British upper-class, to her struggle with her family to enter the lowly field of charitable nursing, to her search for religious meaning and her refusal of marriage, to her work in the hospitals of the Crimean war where she became famous, Pritchard paints her life, the dialogue and banter of family members and soldiers, and an entire human personality.
As a reader, I really wanted to know whether the many italicized documents and letters really were Nightingale's or not. I want to believe that they were, but I have doubts.
Nightingale believed that statistics were the road to God.
She was an administrator of hospital systems and believed that efficient administration saved lives.
She changed the British approach to wartime medical care.
During and after the Crimean war she worked with her partner, Sidney Herbert, 1st Baron Herbert of Lea, a highly placed politician whom the author intimates (presumably based on letters and documentary evidence) was the chaste and secret love of Nightingale's life. They were allies in a shared cause until his death in 1861.
Nightingale was a member of the pinnacle of British society. It was only from this position of extreme privilege that she was able to accomplish what she did. Pritchard portrays her as being aware of, and uncomfortable with, her privilege, and yet as one who believed that she must do what her position enabled her to do.
In this touching reading, she never forgot the thousands upon thousands of soldiers that she tended as they lay dying in the infirmaries of the Crimean war. At the end of her life in the early 1900s it was those faces that she remembered above all.
This is a really gripping read.
April 17, 2024
Outstanding novel about Florence Nightingale. What a complex woman. Born into wealth, she was fascinated by science, math and other unsuitable male pursuits from a young age and drawn to nature and healing. Uninterested in society and marriage, she became increasingly unhappy with the traditional female role and at odds with her mother and sister—so much so that she became depressed and deemed at risk of harming herself. She got into nursing around the age of 30 and famously went to the Crimea to care for the soldiers injured and dying there in horrifying conditions. While her patients loved and revered Florence as a saint, she was seen as difficult, arrogant and demanding by those who worked with and for her. The format of the book is unusual, with very short chapters that are almost vignettes, including some first person journal entries and others from different viewpoints. The book offers moving insights into her life and times and a graphic portrayal of the unimaginable horror of the Crimean War,
March 27, 2024
As a teenager, I wrote a report for school about Florence Nightingale that wound up being quite long, because I was so excited by her heroic actions and complicated character. So I've been looking forward to seeing what Melissa Pritchard, one of my favorite writers, would do with her life. And it's even more dazzling than I could have imagined: intuitive, beautifully researched while being vivid, immediate, and surprising. Nightingale was a being of contradictions: this book stays true to her greatness and also her complications, showing us a soul's journey. The novel is full of people who are amazingly alive. The voices of the book capture Nightingale's need to serve and love of both science and God. The novel's also imaginative and daring in the way it fills in parts of her life we don't know. Really inspiring.
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