In Florence Nightingale’s day, if a person was sick – and lucky – he or she was nursed at home with caring family members tending the bedside. Hospitals were horrible places from which few emerged alive. The nurses were often drunks and prostitutes. Doctors had rudimentary skills. Thus the privileged Nightingale family was appalled when Florence, who had done her share of household nursing, announced that she wanted to train to work in a hospital. After all, her role was cut out for her: she was to be a decorative, witty lady. A career, much less nursing, was out of the question. It took many years, but Florence found her calling in Crimea. More English soldiers died of sickness there than died in battle. If they were wounded they were almost sure to suffer in misery, lying on pallets caked with old blood, hungry and thirsty, without anyone to offer them so much as a sip of water. Florence caused a revolution in her insistence for cleanliness, wholesome food, and kind treatment of men, who were considered to be nothing more than cannon fodder. Florence’s campaign resulted in reforms to health care for millions of people. Although she was in frail health for much of her life, her sense of outrage and her extraordinary stamina in the face of prejudice and almost criminal ignorance make her story one of the most inspiring in history. Dozens of photographs, posters, and cartoons bring the past to life in this memorable biography.

This book is as captivating as the city itself. Hibbert's gift is weaving political, social and art history into an elegantly readable and marvellously lively whole. The author's book on Florence will also be at once a history and a guide book and will be enhanced by splendid photographs and illustrations and line drawings which will describe all teh buildings and treasures of the city.

The founder of modern nursing comes to life in this accessible biography for young readers. Born and raised in a wealthy family, no one expected Florence Nightingale to grow up to do dirty work. But she found her life's calling after witnessing firsthand the atrocious conditions at hospitals in the mid 1800s. Where everyone else saw unavoidable chaos, Florence saw opportunity for order. She developed strict standards of hygiene and established extensive nurse training. Her new systems significantly lowered death rates and revolutionized the healthcare landscape of her time. When she was thirty-eight years old, Florence contracted Crimean fever and remained homebound for the rest of her life. She continued to fight for nursing reform and sanitary conditions, working from her bed as she met distinguished guests and published papers. This informative entry in Adler's well-known series contains biography, facts, and history accompanied by charming illustrations.

This stunning hardcover collection brings alive the magnificent Italian city of Florence through the eyes of literary greats from Dante to Salman Rushdie. Florence's world-famous Renaissance is represented here by its most illustrious chroniclers, beginning with Dante's vision of an Inferno teeming with his Florentine contemporaries, Boccaccio's bawdy tales of young Florentine nobles in The Decameron, and the artist Cellini's swashbuckling adventures. The city's long tradition of attracting foreign visitors is celebrated by selections from Mark Twain's The Innocents Abroad, E. M. Forster's A Room with a View, and the rapturous impressions of Stendhal (who gave his name to Stendhal syndrome). Mary McCarthy provides a vivid depiction of a twentieth-century market town; Penelope Fitzgerald weaves a gentle comedy of manners among Florence's fading aristocracy; Vasco Pratolini, one of the city's most renowned modern authors, tells a tender tale of brotherly love among the urban poor under 1930s fascism; and Salman Rushdie dazzles with the magical realism of The Enchantress of Florence. George Eliot, Rainer Maria Rilke, Henry James, D. H. Lawrence, Somerset Maugham, Cuzio Malaparte, and Iris Origo are among the other brilliant writers whose stories illuminate facets of this fascinating city. Everyman's Library pursues the highest production standards, printing on acid-free cream-colored paper, with full-cloth cases with two-color foil stamping, decorative endpapers, silk ribbon markers, European-style half-round spines, and a full-color illustrated jacket.

'A marvel of storytelling and a masterclass in the history of the book' WALL STREET JOURNAL The Renaissance in Florence conjures images of beautiful frescoes and elegant buildings - the dazzling handiwork of the city's artists and architects. But equally important were geniuses of another kind: Florence's manuscript hunters, scribes, scholars and booksellers. At a time where all books were made by hand, these people helped imagine a new and enlightened world. At the heart of this activity was a remarkable bookseller: Vespasiano da Bisticci. His books were works of art in their own right, copied by talented scribes and illuminated by the finest miniaturists. With a client list that included popes and royalty, Vespasiano became the 'king of the world's booksellers'. But by 1480 a new invention had appeared: the printed book, and Europe's most prolific merchant of knowledge faced a formidable new challenge. 'A spectacular life of the book trade's Renaissance man' JOHN CAREY, SUNDAY TIMES

“The perfect summer read” (USA TODAY) begins with a shocking tragedy that results in three generations of the Adler family grappling with heartbreak, romance, and the weight of family secrets over the course of one summer. *A New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice * One of USA TODAY’s “Best Books of 2020” * One of Good Morning America’s “25 Novels You'll Want to Read This Summer” * One of Parade’s “26 Best Books to Read This Summer” Atlantic City, 1934. Every summer, Esther and Joseph Adler rent their house out to vacationers escaping to “America’s Playground” and move into the small apartment above their bakery. Despite the cramped quarters, this is the apartment where they raised their two daughters, Fannie and Florence, and it always feels like home. Now, Florence has returned from college, determined to spend the summer training to swim the English Channel, and Fannie, pregnant again after recently losing a baby, is on bedrest for the duration of her pregnancy. After Joseph insists they take in a mysterious young woman whom he recently helped emigrate from Nazi Germany, the apartment is bursting at the seams. Esther only wants to keep her daughters close and safe but some matters are beyond her control: there’s Fannie’s risky pregnancy—not to mention her always-scheming husband, Isaac—and the fact that the handsome heir of a hotel notorious for its anti-Semitic policies, seems to be in love with Florence. When tragedy strikes, Esther makes the shocking decision to hide the truth—at least until Fannie’s baby is born—and pulls the family into an elaborate web of secret-keeping and lies, bringing long-buried tensions to the surface that reveal how quickly the act of protecting those we love can turn into betrayal. “Readers of Emma Straub and Curtis Sittenfeld will devour this richly drawn debut family saga” (Library Journal) that’s based on a true story and is a breathtaking portrayal of how the human spirit can endure—and even thrive—after tragedy.