Illustrated book with dustjacket and clear protective cover. Book has a pale blue cover with tile author's and publisher's names embossed in gilt on spine. Dustjacket has a cream background with a contemporary colour engraving of Florence Nightingale on the front with tile printed above and authors name below. These are framed with a floral border. Title, author's and publisher's names are also printed on the spine of the dustjacket. On the back of the dust jacket is a photograph of a full-length Staffordshire porcelain model of Florence Nightingale standing, a veil on her head. To her right an officer sitting, bare headed, his left arm in a sling [ca.1855]non-fictionFlorence Nightingale lived to be over 90 yet spent less than two years in the military hospitals in Scutari, where the legend of the Lady of the Lamp was created. The "ministering angel' was in reality a tough domineering and brilliant administrator, scholar and writer of government reports. Elspeth Huxley concentrates on the contradictory personality of this woman, by turns a bullying martinet, a loyal and emotional fried, a compassionate nurse, a witty companion, a writer of sermons and masterly manipulator of men =, who at 17 turned her back on London society when she heard a call from God to serviceflorence nightingale, nursing-history, crimean war