This study of the personality and achievements of Florence Nightingale is based on extensive research and unpublished material. She achieved fame for her leadership of a group of British nurses during the Crimean War, and afterwards she dedicated herself to promoting public health. Following a collapse at age 37, she remained bedridden for more than ten years and became one of history's most famous invalids. Hugh Small has produced a new and startling explanation of Florence Nightingale's actions, comparing the conflicting contemporary accounts of what really happened in her hospital at Scutari during the war and uncovering an official cover-up of a public health disaster for which Nightingale felt personally responsible.