Wonderful Adventures of Mrs Seacole in Many Lands

Mary Seacole's reputation after the Crimean War certainly rivalled that of her counterpart Florence Nightingale but for a very long time she was a forgotten footnote in history, and this probably had a lot to do with the fact she was not a white middle class woman, but was instead the offspring of two races, that of a Scottish father and a black Jamaican mother. She was a born healer and a woman of tremendous energy, she overcame official indifference and racial prejudice as she strove to prove her worth as a Nurse on par with Nightingale herself. Seacole got herself out to the war by her own efforts and at her own expense, she risked her life to bring comfort to the wounded and dying soldiers; and became one of the first black woman to make a mark on British public life. But while Florence Nightingale has gone down in history, Mary Seacole was relegated to obscurity until very recently. This book tells her story in her own words, of her travels, her experiences, her life as a woman in colour living in a time of bigotry, prejudice and racial hatred. It's a fantastic book and brings to life in its many pages a woman of courage and moral conviction that what she was doing with her life was the right thing to do. To me Mary Seacole optimises the Crimean War in a way that Nightingale never can. A book worthy to be read in schools in the way that Anne Frank is read even now in the 21st century.

Mary Seacole's reputation after the Crimean War certainly rivalled that of her counterpart Florence Nightingale but for a very long time she was a forgotten footnote in history, and this probably had a lot to do with the fact she was not a white middle class woman, but was instead the offspring of two races, that of a Scottish father and a black Jamaican mother. She was a born healer and a woman of tremendous energy, she overcame official indifference and racial prejudice as she strove to prove her worth as a Nurse on par with Nightingale herself. Seacole got herself out to the war by her own efforts and at her own expense, she risked her life to bring comfort to the wounded and dying soldiers; and became one of the first black woman to make a mark on British public life. But while Florence Nightingale has gone down in history, Mary Seacole was relegated to obscurity until very recently. This book tells her story in her own words, of her travels, her experiences, her life as a woman in colour living in a time of bigotry, prejudice and racial hatred. It's a fantastic book and brings to life in its many pages a woman of courage and moral conviction that what she was doing with her life was the right thing to do. To me Mary Seacole optimises the Crimean War in a way that Nightingale never can. A book worthy to be read in schools in the way that Anne Frank is read even now in the 21st century.