Written in 1857, Wonderful Adventures of Mrs Seacole in Many Lands is the autobiography of a Jamaican woman whose fame rivaled Florence Nightingale’s during the Crimean War. Seacole traveled widely before arriving in London, where her offer to volunteer as a nurse in the war was met with racism and refusal. Undaunted, she set out independently to the Crimea, where she acted as doctor and “mother” to wounded soldiers while running her business, the “British Hotel.” Told with energy, warmth, and humor, her remarkable life story and accounts of hardships at the battlefront offer significant insights into the history of race politics.
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About the Author
Mary Seacole (1805–1881) was born in Jamaica. She was decorated for her work in the Crimea, which helped open up the medical professions to women.
Sara Salih is assistant professor of English at the University of Toronto and editor of The History of Mary Prince for Penguin Classics.
Sara Salih is assistant professor of English at the University of Toronto and editor of The History of Mary Prince for Penguin Classics.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Mother Seacole's adventures makes you thirst for excitement,
By Kali "bengaligirl" (United Kingdom) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Wonderful Adventures of Mrs Seacole in Many Lands (Penguin Classics) (Mass Market Paperback)
Mary Seacole's reputation after the Crimean War certainly rivalled that of her counterpart Florence Nightingale but for a very long time she was a forgotten footnote in history, and this probably had a lot to do with the fact she was not a white middle class woman, but was instead the offspring of two races, that of a Scottish father and a black Jamaican mother.
She was a born healer and a woman of tremendous energy, she overcame official indifference and racial prejudice as she strove to prove her worth as a Nurse on par with Nightingale herself. Seacole got herself out to the war by her own efforts and at her own expense, she risked her life to bring comfort to the wounded and dying soldiers; and became one of the first black woman to make a mark on British public life. But while Florence Nightingale has gone down in history, Mary Seacole was relegated to obscurity until very recently. This book tells her story in her own words, of her travels, her experiences, her life as a woman in colour living in a time of bigotry, prejudice and racial hatred. It's a fantastic book and brings to life in its many pages a woman of courage and moral conviction that what she was doing with her life was the right thing to do. To me Mary Seacole optimises the Crimean War in a way that Nightingale never can. A book worthy to be read in schools in the way that Anne Frank is read even now in the 21st century.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Forgotten heroine of the Crimea,
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This review is from: Wonderful Adventures of Mrs Seacole in Many Lands (Penguin Classics) (Mass Market Paperback)
We all know Florence Nightingale, but what about Mrs. Seacole, the Creole nurse who also served the wounded and dying in the Crimean War?
Mrs. Seacole was born in Jamaica in 1805, half black, half Scottish, and equally proud of both bloodlines. She learned Creole medicine from her "doctress" mother. During some of her adventures in lawless Panama, she became adept at tending knife and gunshot wounds. Hearing of the miserable conditions among the wounded in the Crimean War, she longed to help. Florence Nightingale, however, refused to accept the brown-skinned Mrs. Seacole as a nurse, despite her ideal qualifications. And so Mrs. Seacole sponsored herself, setting up a combination shop and restaurant near the siege grounds of Sevastopol and dividing her time between business and the battlefield. An upbeat narrator full of fascinating anecdotes, Mrs. Seacole is humorous, motherly and audacious by turns. An inveterate traveler to dangerous places, she never ceases to amaze us with her entrepreneurial chutzpah and her passion for healing. This complex woman was too colorful a personality to be defined by her color. She simply refused to be daunted by the deep racism of society. To read her autobiography is to feel very close to her. Mrs. Seacole was a charmer as well as a great humanitarian, and it's easy to see why she was so beloved by the sick and wounded and the soldiers who saw her in action. The Wonderful Adventures make wonderful reading, but more importantly, the book presents us with a heroine who has been strangely eclipsed by Florence Nightingale, yet deserves to be just as famous. The introduction is also an excellent read and gives background on the Crimean War that I sorely needed, not being up on history. Highly recommended!
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Age of enlightenment / Modernity,
This review is from: Wonderful Adventures of Mrs Seacole in Many Lands (Penguin Classics) (Mass Market Paperback)
Great read.
Mary Seacole leads readers to question nationalist paradigms when she defines herself as Jamaican and Scottish then British. The reader starts to question nationality, location, identity and history memory and starts to reevaluate how absolute these descriptions are. In Seacole's book, she shows criss-crossing of the the black atlantic population with the West. A loss of purity in essence at her time.
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Inside This Book
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First Sentence:
I was born in the town of Kingston, in the island of Jamaica, some time in the present century. Read the first page Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
naval brigade, yellow woman Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Spring Hill, British Hotel, Navy Bay, New Granada, Miss Nightingale, Cathcart's Hill, Army Works Corps, Isthmus of Panama, Mother Seacole, Jew Johnny, Land Transport Corps, Madame Seacole, Aunty Seacole, Independent Hotel, New Orleans, Black Sea, Central America, Spanish Indians, West Indies, Royal Naval Brigade, Up-Park Camp New!
Concordance | Text Stats Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
I was born in the town of Kingston, in the island of Jamaica, some time in the present century. Read the first page Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
naval brigade, yellow woman Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Spring Hill, British Hotel, Navy Bay, New Granada, Miss Nightingale, Cathcart's Hill, Army Works Corps, Isthmus of Panama, Mother Seacole, Jew Johnny, Land Transport Corps, Madame Seacole, Aunty Seacole, Independent Hotel, New Orleans, Black Sea, Central America, Spanish Indians, West Indies, Royal Naval Brigade, Up-Park Camp New!
Concordance | Text Stats Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
Citations (learn more)
1
book
cites this book:
- Mary Seacole: The Most Famous Black Woman of the Victorian Age by Jane Robinson in Back Matter
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