In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

Literature Nightingale owned a sizable library of books, on history, literature , religion and science as well as on work-related medical books and sanitary reports. She frequently borrowed and exchanged books with colleagues. She bought and gave books to nurses’ homes, reading rooms for soldiers and workers (notably at Lea Hurst). Correspondence in the section on education, above, recounts gifts of books to the reading rooms and school at Lea Hurst, sixty volumes at Christmas 1896 (see p 709 above), the particular offer of Lyell’s Principles of Geology for Students,1 ‘‘but very likely you have it,’’ and [Alfred Thayer] Mahan’s Influence of Sea Power on History.2 See the electronic text for Nightingale’s purchases of books for nurses and reading rooms. Nightingale had accounts with booksellers in London and Paris. In 1865 she was trying to get a book of Chinese poetry, in French translation .3 She was troubled when she could not find a Persian poem with a French translation M Mohl had given her.4 She regretted the loss of her Persian poems.5 The following items show the range of her reading . A listing of her own books and those she gave away is provided in the electronic text. Correspondence is full of references to books, for example, a letter to Julia Ward Howe noted that the most discussed were ‘‘Miss Mar1 Charles Lyell (1797-1875); the book referred to is an adaptation of his Principles of Geology, or, the Modern Changes of the Earth and Its Inhabitants, 1842. 2 Letter to Mr Burton 2 December 1897, Boston University 1/11/146. 3 Letter to Mr Jeffs 20 March 1865, Columbia University, Presbyterian Hospital School of Nursing C82. 4 Letter to Eleanor Martin 14 November 1868, Leicestershire Record Office DG6/D1217. 5 Letter to Parthenope Verney [March 1870], Wellcome (Claydon copy) Ms 9004/28. / 725 tineau’s Eastern Life, which Murray would not publish because, he said, he never published anything against Christianity—dunce! Jane Eyre, which I hope you have read, and Newman’s Loss and Gain,6 detailing the steps by which he reached Roman Catholicism. It is a clever cutting away of all other religions till by a sort of reductio ad absurdum he leaves nothing but the Roman. People say it’s dangerous; I can’t see it.’’7 Nightingale’s literary notes were never intended for publication nor a scholarly contribution to literary criticism (or ‘‘novelism’’ as she called one component of it). From her earliest childhood until her eyesight failed Nightingale read good literature and scholarly analyses of it. She could be inconsistent, too, often recommending book reviews, yet also insisting that she never read them.8 Apparently lengthy review articles were an exception. Nightingale wrote about books to her friends, recommended favourites, borrowed and loaned copies. She owned a substantial number of novels and collections of poetry and essays. It is remarkable that a number of secondary sources she noted are still in use (for example, Brandes and Dowden on Shakespeare). Yet she was enormously selective in what she noted, often honing in on the cause of death of the author. Her excerpts on the novel Robert Falconer (in Theology 3:625-32), were of passages where she identified personally with the character. This is the case here, too, for the most part. The comments that follow then are not so much literary analysis as an expression of how Nightingale felt about her life. Taking a cure at Malvern Bath in 1857 Nightingale wrote her sister for a bottle of eau de cologne and a novel.9 Elsewhere she said she certainly would not pay £25 to the London Library, for she ‘‘never read any books but what are not to be found there’’; her literature was Comte, Cousin, Catholic rules and German metaphysics.10 Yet at other 6 J.H. Newman, Loss and Gain: The Story of a Convert. John Henry Newman (1801-90), Oxford theologian, leader of the Tractarian revival and hymn writer, converted to Roman Catholicism in 1845, established the Birmingham Oratory and was made cardinal shortly before his death. 7 Letter to Julia Ward Howe, 28 July 1848, in Laura E. Richards, ‘‘Letters of Florence Nightingale’’ 342. 8 Letter to Mary Clark Mohl 7 February [1851], Add Mss 43397 f304. 9 Letter to Parthenope Nightingale 1857, Wellcome (Claydon copy) Ms 9030/4. 10 Letter to family 20 August [1853], Wellcome (Claydon copy) Ms 8994/37. 726 / Florence Nightingale on Society and Politics...

Share