WRITING AS FEMALE NATIONAL AND IMPERIAL RESPONSIBILITY: FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE'S SCHEME FOR SOCIAL AND CULTURAL REFORMS IN ENGLAND AND INDIA

Florence Nightingale, who became a national heroine after the Crimean War, was the most popular subject in hagiographical collective biographies of women during the mid- and late-1850s. However, her life can be regarded as a resolute resistance to conformity with the ideal of womanhood in the Victorian era. She recognised the chasm between her popularity and reality: Good public!

It knew nothing of what I was really doing in the Crimea. Good public! It has known nothing of what I wanted to do & have done since I came home.

(Private note from 1857; Nightingale, Ever Yours 177–78) This statement implies the resistance to the misrepresentation of her, which is indicative of her inner struggle to search for a means to express her vision.