"Florence Nightingale's Notes on Nursing, published in 1859, was the first book to address the specifics of patient care. It was written in a time when medical science was beginning to understand the importance of rules of hygiene. Hospitals were places where infections spread quickly, and caregivers were mainly untrained and impoverished. Nightingale spoke to these issues and gave specific directions to resolve concerns such as nourishment, ventilation, personal cleanliness, and patient observation" -- Book jacket.

The founder of the nursing profession discusses the image and the duties of the profession.

"Victorian Literature is a comprehensive and fully annotated anthology with a flexible design that allows teachers and students to pursue traditional or innovative lines of inquiry, from the canon to its extensions to its contexts. Represents the period's major writers of prose, poetry, drama, and more, including Tennyson, Arnold, the Brownings, Carlyle, Ruskin, the Rossettis, Wilde, Eliot, and the Brontës Promotes an ideologically and culturally varied view of Victorian society with the inclusion of women, working-class, colonial, and gay and lesbian writers Incorporates recent scholarship with 5 contextual sections and innovative sub-sections on topics like environmentalism and animal rights; mass literacy and mass media; sex and sexuality; Victorian childhood; melodrama and comedy; the Irish question; ruling India and the Indian Mutiny; innovations in print culture; and the science of race Emphasizes the interdisciplinary nature of the field with a focus on social, cultural, artisti