Florence Nightingale was a great pioneer of nursing, her gifts for organizing and arranging a model of care resulted in many lives being saved during the Crimean War.

This biography unveils the woman behind the icon - it covers the entirety of Nightingale's life, from her girlhood and upbringing, through to her education and the events preceding her famous posting in Crimea, to her later years and campaigns for reform. Accounts from her youth bear clues as to how Florence would go on to demonstrate innovative resourcefulness which directly saved the lives of many wounded soldiers. Studious and motivated, as a girl Florence carried a thirst for knowledge plus a keen interest in the practical applications of things she had learned.

The biographer Cecil Woodham Smith notes in his introduction that earlier treatments of Florence Nightingale lacked sources which were only made available later on. Thus this narrative is brought alive by letters and anecdotes from relatives and friends; together these sources help us gain an accurate impression of how Florence grew and changed as a person through experience. The reader will emerge enlightened, with all phases of the great nurse's life covered in superb detail.