Highest Recommendation!
The “Collected Works of Florence Nightingale”

As we launch this 2011 upgrade of www.NightingaleDeclaration.net, NIGH's website development team is privileged to feature the “Collected Works of Florence Nightingale,” edited by our colleague and friend, Dr. Lynn McDonald. This Collection is an extraordinary work undertaken by Dr. McDonald at the University of Guelph and published by the Wilfrid Laurier University Press in Canada. With 14 volumes completed and two more nearly ready for publication, this Collection rigorously provides contemporary readers with all surviving available Nightingale's texts, complied by topic. A tremendous, decades-long undertaking well-worth everyone's consideration—this Collection provides all of us the rich opportunity to more fully-understand the phenomenal depth, breadth and timeless relevance of Nightingale's mind, heart and spirit.

As Dr. McDonald notes in her Introduction to the Project, Nightingale “was a national heroine in her own day and unofficial consultant on numerous matters of public policy for decades. As early as the 1860s, she had formulated the central principles of a public health care system. Her work can be seen now, in an age more sensitive to environmental issues, as greatly prescient in integrating factors of the biophysical environment with social and economic factors. Some attention has been paid to her work in applied statistics but little to her expertise more generally in methodology, philosophy, theology and spirituality, and women’s issues. She was in touch was an extraordinary cross-section of people: royal personages, prime ministers and Cabinet members, leaders in medical science, philosophers, theologians, the military, literary figures and natural scientists.

“The Collected Works shows how Nightingale integrated her scholarly work with political activism. She not only collected data and consulted experts but became well versed in major areas of public policy. She 'lobbied' extensively to achieve implementation of her reform agenda. She led a team of researchers/reformers for decades, drawing on their expertise and inspiring them with her comprehensive vision. The material presented here shows a different, much more complex, Nightingale than is generally presented in the secondary literature.”

You can select individual books from this Collection—for yourself and for gifts. The entire Collection is indeed a worthwhile investment to study, treasure and leave as a legacy. We are also suggesting that this full Collection is well-suited to investments in and contributions to library inventories. As well, a donation of the full Collection—to a community, school or university library—can become a fitting Nightingale Memorial Tribute to dear departed family, friends and colleagues.

We wholeheartedly recommend the “Collected Works of Florence Nightingale” to each of you!

Important Related Links

Where to Order The Collected Works of Florence Nightingale

Introducing Each of The Volumes

Newsletters Detailing Publishing Progress & Related Features

Key Sources on Nightingale

Dr. Lynn McDonald is a professor of sociology at the University of Guelph, Ontario. She is a former president of the National Action Committee on the Status of Women, Canada’s largest women’s organization. As a Member of Parliament (the first “Ms” in the House of Commons), her Non-smokers Health Act made Parliamentary history as a private member’s bill, and made Canada a world leader in the “tobacco wars.” She is the author of The Early Origins of the Social Sciences (1993), and The Women Founders of the Social Sciences (1994) and editor of Women Theorists on Society and Politics (WLU Press, 1998), all of which have significant sections on Florence Nightingale. Photo used with permission.