WRITING AS FEMALE NATIONAL AND IMPERIAL RESPONSIBILITY: FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE'S SCHEME FOR SOCIAL AND CULTURAL REFORMS IN ENGLAND AND INDIA
Journal: Victorian Literature and Culture
Year: 2010

Florence Nightingale, who became a national heroine after the Crimean War, was the most popular subject in hagiographical collective biographies of women during the mid- and late-1850s. However, her life can be regarded as a resolute resistance to conformity with the ideal of womanhood in the Victorian era. She recognised the chasm between her popularity and reality: Good public! It knew nothing of what I was really doing in the Crimea. Good public! It has known nothing of what I wanted to do &a