NIGHTINGALE (FLORENCE)


Autograph letter signed ("Florence Nightingale"), to her trusted nurse, Mrs Roberts, asking her to return immediately with one of her nurses, leaving the others "in charge of the nun" ("...We have 250 wounded just arriving & I want you for a few hours to see after them..."), 1 page, integral blank frayed with traces of mounting verso, one or two fox-marks, 8vo, [Scutari, 1854-6]
|'WE HAVE 250 WOUNDED JUST ARRIVING' – FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE IN THE CRIMEA. The letter's recipient, Eliza Roberts was a retired nurse from St Thomas's who went out with Florence Nightingale in late October 1854 and was the only one of the original party of twenty to stay the course, being 'worth her weight in gold'; she also nursed Nightingale through her critical illness of May 1855, saving her life (see Florence Nightingale: The Crimean War in Collected Works, vol. xiv, 2010, edited by Lynn McDonald, pp.65, 384 & 1038). She is commemorated in Jerry Barrett's painting The Mission of Mercy: Florence Nightingale receiving the Wounded at Scutari (1857, NPG), where she is seen nursing a wounded soldier (indeed, being the only person in the picture doing anything useful).