Winner of the Elizabeth Longford Prize for Historical Biography, Mark Bostridge’s Florence Nightingale is a masterful and enjoyable biography of one of Britain’s most iconic heroines. Whether honoured and admired or criticized and ridiculed, Florence Nightingale has invariably been misrepresented and misunderstood. As the Lady with the Lamp, ministering to the wounded and dying of the Crimean War, she offers an enduring image of sentimental appeal and one that is permanently lodged in our national consciousness. But the awesome scale of her achievements over the course of her 90 years is infinitely more troubling – and inspiring – than this mythical simplification.