FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE: Nurse to the World

Another conventional ode to the Nightingale that compares favorably with predecessors of its reverent ilk, less so to the more honest Barbara Harmelink (p. 388, J-150), and doesn't hold a candle to Woodham-Smith's Lonely Crusader--still the most analytical illumination of the neurotic rebel. Mrs. Wyndham's efforts are at their best in dealing with Florence as nurse qua nurse, in the Crimea and at home in England superintending training programs (where the admiring, indeed inspiring tone is well-taken). The attention to professional specifics is profitable; not so the rhapsodic reconstruction of ""Flo's Secret World,"" much better penetrated when told as it was.