Book review: Wonderful Adventures of Mrs Seacole in Many Lands

I've been quite fascinated by Mary Seacole since first hearing about her, and her Wonderful Adventures of Mrs Seacole in Many Lands is free on kindle, and is surprisingly readable for a Victorian autobiography. A mixed-race Jamaican, the self-taught nurse or "doctress" as she described herself is remembered for her work in the Crimean War, where she had a better survival rate than Florence Nightingale, who was later to overshadow her completely. Prior to that though we get her earlier life in Jamaica where she learnt her nursing skills, and in various parts of Central America where she learnt how to run "hotels" that were essentially cheap bars and restaurants. That was the model she eventually used in the Crimea with her British Hotel, a cross between a bar and a hospital, set up independently when her services as a nurse were turned down by Nightingale's hospital and the other official channels.

Though apparently prone to exaggeration about some of her achievements in the Crimea, Wonderful Adventures of Mrs Seacole in Many Lands is still a very entertaining read, Seacole comes across as a bit of a shameless self-publicist (the narrative is occasionally interrupted to quote letters of recommendation from former patients and customers) and unapologetic about the fact that the British Hotel was intended to make money (ultimately unsuccessfully - the war ended a bit earlier than she expected, leaving her with a lot of leftover stock and she returned to London destitute.) But she's not entirely Mother Courage, there's also an obvious affection for the men in her care and a genuine wish to do good. She's also a surprisingly funny writer with a witty way with words that goes some way to explaining why she was so much more popular than Nightingale with the soldiers (other than the fact that she sold them booze which Nightingale disapproved of, that is,) she sounds like she'd have been good company who gave as good as she got.

This could also be a good book to have read if you're ever confronted with someone who tells you the world's going to hell in a handbasket and Victorian values were better - Seacole is frequently horrified by the looting and stealing being done by men on all sides, some of the violence and robbing from the dead is still shocking to read today.