In Search of Mary Seacole

Reviews

'Rappaport fleshes out Seacole's own account...she throws light on her subject's family [and] there are vivid passages about British and Caribbean society. Rappaport is particularly good at addressing her subtitle [The Making of an Icon]. This portrait of an outstanding woman is timely.' 'Rappaport’s fascination with her subject started twenty years ago when she discovered the 1869 portrait of Seacole that now hangs in the National Portrait Gallery. This image of an older woman, resolute, unfussy yet proudly wearing her honours, seems incredibly modern. The book, equally measured and impressive, feels like the biography Seacole has so long deserved.' 'This is an excellent book... She has doggedly pursued and expanded the leads thrown up by her methodology with consummate success. The tone of the book is engaging.' 'Well-researched...Rappaport leaves no shred of evidence unexamined... And her work pays off; the Crimean section of In Search of Mary Seacole is the book’s beating heart...A comprehensive and much-deserved tribute to an incredible life' 'Scholarly biographer Helen Rappaport says that...the authors of school textbooks have failed to check the facts...[and] Rappaport crisps up the details. Rappaport does a terrific job of bringing respectful rigour to her account of Seacole's extraordinary life.' 'Strips away the layers of mystery from the life of the heroine of the Crimean War. I love history books like this that describe the author’s voyage through the archives.' 'I salute Helen Rappaport for taking us to this place so completely with all her imagination, research and thinking. This is an astonishingly rich story... This wonderfully informative book presents Seacole in all her roundness: a ministering angel who was no angel; a driven woman who basked in adulation, and was forgotten for 90 years after her death.' 'Richly detailed...much of the book reads like a detective story. What leaps from these pages, as well as Seacole's remarkable deeds and character, is the great esteem, indeed love, in which she was held. In this wonderful book, Dr Rappaport has created a fitting tribute.' 'An invaluable contribution to the scholarship on Seacole... Rappaport paints a vivid picture of Seacole's portly and brightly dressed figure treating grateful soldiers... Rappaport's biography is a welcome contribution to our understanding of this truly remarkable medical pioneer.'  'Lively and entertaining... Seacole has become such an iconic figure that many legends have grown up around her, but Rappaport's book is a more valuable monument to Seacole's legacy than that painting [she discovered], or many of the other books and poems celebrating her life. Myth is important; but not as important as history.' 'The story of Seacole's life is riven with holes and clouded with myth. And it's these absences and confusions that Helen Rappaort seeks to fill in and smoooth out in her impressive...new biography. The Seacole we meet in these pages is enterprising, intrepid, and...really rather shrewd.' 'Inevitably comparisons have been made with Florence Nightingale, who also achieved fame for her nursing exploits in the Crimea, but this is unfair to both women... Rappaport’s eloquently argued work sets the record straight by revealing the life story of a most extraordinary woman.' 'A carefully researched piece of scholarship, balanced and informative... I was also struck by an insightful analysis of the impact that Seacole’s pioneering work has had on the development of the nursing profession. This book will serve specialists in the field and casual readers equally well, and opens a window into the life of a unique and remarkable woman about whom there is still much to be discovered.' 'A major new study...Rappaport's work is thoroughly documented. She has discovered a significant amount of new material. Various myths are demolished... In Search of Mary Seacole presents its subject as a woman and writer who overcame much and resists the too easy categorisations of both her own time and ours.' 'A welcome addition to the growing body of scholarship on the presence of people, especially women, of African ancestry in the UK. Detailed and interesting...the book highlights the joys, frustrations, and often unrecognised challenges in all history writing.' Expand reviews