About the Author

Lynn McDonald is a professor of sociology at the University of Guelph, Ontario, a former president of the National Action Committee on the Status of Women, Canadas largest womens organisation, and a former Member of Parliament. She herself has been a public health advocate. As a Member of the Canadian Parliament, she succeeded in getting the Non-smokers Health Act adopted in 1988 as a private members bill. It not only made Parliamentary history (aside from the fact that McDonald was the first Ms in the House of Commons) but it also made Canada a leader in the tobacco wars. She is the author of several books on women theorists.

Reviews

``The Nightingale project ranks with both the Gladstone diaries and the Disraeli letters as a major undertaking in the field of Victorian-era scholarship, and therefore is of surpassing value to historians of the period, as well as to general readers.'' -- C. Brad Faught, Tyndale University College, Toronto -- Anglican and Episcopal History, Vol. 81 (1), March 2012, 201204

``The Collected Works of Florence Nightingale is an extremely ambitious project that is a great service to scholarship. Every general academic library should own the complete set. It pulls together material that has been hitherto diffused across more than 150 collections, some of them private ones, in places ranging from Germany to India and Japan, as well as numerous English-speaking countries.'' -- Timothy Larsen -- Books and Culture, November/December 2008, 200901

``The details and explications of her views...are presented in carefully annotated and insightful editorial discussions....[These volumes] provide a more complete understanding of this complex woman, extending our appreciation of her much beyond the `The Lady with the Lamp' legend.... The product of rigorous scholarship, of meticulous historical research--and a labour of love.'' -- Canadian Bulletin of Medical History, Volume 21/1, 2004, 200510

``[I]t is clear that this is an academic project of the highest importance and integrity. It will have an impact on the work of scholars far beyond the immediate field of health history. Nightingale's interests were wide-ranging and her correspondence included some of the leading thinkers of her day....The editing of these volumes is exemplary. Every reference has been followed up, including the identification of minor dramatis personae. Important personalities are accorded short biographies. On every page there are biblical allusions, which are faithfully identified. Each thematic section has an introductory essay and these are amplified by a full outline of Nightingale's life and thought in volume 1. This project makes a major contribution to scholarship which will be of permanent value.'' -- Helen Mathers, University of Sheffield, Ecclesiastical History

``The Collected Works will allow us to see for the first time the full complexity of this extraordinary and multifacted woman. It will be a tool of enormous value not only to Nightgale scholars and biographers, but also to historians of a wide variety of aspects of Victorian society: war, the army, public health nursing, religion, India, women's issues and so on.'' -- Mark Bostridge -- Times Literary Supplement, January 10, 2003, 200310