As a young woman I read a biography about Florence Nightingale.  I’d been privy to the Lady with the Lamp fairytale as most of us have been and was surprised to learn about Nightingale’s steely advocacy, her lobbying parliamentarians, her decision to remain single, her racism and colonialist perspectives. 

She was political and a brilliant statistician and tireless writer. Read Laura Elvery’s Nightingale by all means, but although it features Florence Nightingale, it isn’t a factual treatise about this complex, upper-class woman. 

Elvery has a reputation for referencing influential women in her writing. Her prize-winning Ordinary Matter features twenty women scientists who won Nobel Prizes for Science since its inception in 1901.

You can read more in my review I wrote for InReview.