Lynn McDonald, Florence Nightingale at First Hand
Journal: Social History of Medicine
Year: 2011

In the opening sentence of Florence Nightingale at First Hand Lynn McDonald pre-empts her readers by asking, ‘Why another book on Florence Nightingale?’ (p. xi). The answer she provides is that the book differs from other books on Nightingale by being neither adulatory nor cynical. Instead it offers Nightingale's own writings, from which the readers may make their own decisions. The book is divided into chapters each of which deals with a different aspect of Nightingale's work. All chapters comb