Flight of the Wild Swan -- Melissa Pritchard, Paperback

A majestic novel of Florence Nightingale, whose courage, self-confidence, and resilience transformed nursing and the role of women in medicine

Sweeping yet intimate, Flight of the Wild Swan tells the story of Florence Nightingale, a brilliant, trailblazing woman whose humanity has been obscured beneath the iconic weight of legend. From adolescence, Nightingale was determined to fulfill her life's calling to serve the sick and suffering. Overcoming Victorian hierarchies, familial expectations, patriarchal resistance, and her own illness, she used her hard-won acclaim as a battlefield nurse to bring the profession out of its shadowy, disreputable status and elevate nursing to a skilled practice and compassionate art.

In lush, lyrical detail, Melissa Pritchard reveals Nightingale as a rebel who wouldn't relent--one whose extraordinary life offers a grand lesson in inspired will.

Author: Melissa Pritchard
Publisher: Bellevue Literary Press
Published: 03/12/2024
Pages: 416
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 1.05lbs
Size: 8.20h x 5.50w x 1.10d
ISBN: 9781954276215

Review Citation(s):
Kirkus Reviews 01/15/2024
Publishers Weekly 01/29/2024
Foreword 02/13/2024
Booklist 03/15/2024 pg. 48

About the Author

Melissa Pritchard is the author of twelve books, including the novels Flight of the Wild Swan and Palmerino, the short story collection The Odditorium, and the essay collection A Solemn Pleasure: To Imagine, Witness, and Write. Among other honors, she has received the Flannery O'Connor Award, Janet Heidinger Kafka Prize, and Carl Sandburg Literary Award as well as fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Carson McCullers Center. Emeritus Professor of English and Women's Studies at Arizona State University, she is the fiction editor for Image journal and lives in Columbus, Georgia.