Publishers Weekly
06/27/2022
Historian Rappaport (After the Romanovs) delivers a doggedly researched biography of Mary Seacole, née Grant (c. 1805–1881), the Jamaican woman whose roles as caregiver, nurse, and shopkeeper during the Crimean War made her famous. Born to a mixed-race woman and a white Scottish soldier, Seacole learned homeopathic medicine and the boardinghouse business from her mother. Widowed less than a decade after her marriage to a white West India Company employee, Seacole ran lodging houses and restaurants in Jamaica and Panama, putting her medical skills to good use during cholera epidemics in both places. Upon learning of Florence Nightingale’s work in Crimea, Seacole offered her services to the British military and aid organizations but was rebuffed. Undeterred, she teamed up with a business acquaintance from Panama to open a store, restaurant, and medical clinic for British troops and their allies near Balaclava. Extolled by the British press, she earned several medals in recognition of her work. After the war, though, she struggled to support herself—despite publishing a bestselling memoir—and eventually fell into obscurity. Rappaport, who discovered a lost portrait of Seacole in 2002 (it now hangs in the National Portrait Gallery), skillfully delineates the racial and gendered dynamics of the period, making clear just how extraordinary Seacole’s achievements were. The result is a fitting tribute to woman long denied her due. Illus. (Sept.)
New York Times Book Review - Linda Villarosa
"Rappaport stumbled upon a haunting portrait of Seacole, painted in 1869, for sale at a flea market. Rappaport bought the painting and began her nearly two-decade dive into an extraordinary life. She leaves no shred of evidence unexamined, which allows her to shade the contours of Seacole’s history with facts, details and color. 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."
Daily Mail - Helen Brown
‘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.’
Spectator - Andrew Lycett
‘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.’
The Sunday Times
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 Times (London)
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 ninety years after her death.
Literary Review - Wendy Moore
‘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.’
Daily Telegraph - Lucy Scholes
‘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.’
Booklist
A fascinating reclamation of the story of a remarkable woman.
People
Readers will be swept away.”
New York Times Book Review
Sheds light on the life of a woman who, in her own day, was as famous as Florence Nightingale.”
Country Life
Richly detailed. 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.”
Harper’s Bazaar
A multifaceted account. Grippingly and thoroughly researched.”
The Daily Telegraph (London)
Impressive. The Seacole we meet in these pages is enterprising, intrepid, and, really, rather shrewd.”
The Sunday Times (London)
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 Herald (Glasgow)
Rappaport’s eloquently argued work sets the record straight by revealing the life story of a most extraordinary woman.”
Literary Review
A truly remarkable medical pioneer.”
Herald - Trevor Royle
‘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.’
Alison Weir
"Quite simply, stunning. . . . Chilling and poignant, this is how history books should be written.
The Star-Tribune
"But it is her finely honed literary skills that make this book so compelling. . . . Dramatic, sorrowful and heart-poundingly intense.
Country Life - Jacqueline Riding
‘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.’
The New York Times Book Review
Praise for Helen Rappaport:
“Splendid and endlessly fascinating.
The Washington Times
A mosaic of truth which no fictional one could outdo.
PEOPLE
"Readers will be swept away."
Sunday Times - TOMIWA OWOLADE
‘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 Times - YSENDA MAXTONE GRAHAM
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.
The Church Times
"A carefully researched piece of scholarship, balanced and informative...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."
Library Journal
07/01/2022
Rappaport (The Race To Save the Romanovs) brings Mary Seacole to life on the page and provides the real story of the woman who was voted the greatest Black Briton in 2004. Seacole was a Jamaican-born nurse, who gained fame as one of the first nurse practitioners during the Crimean War (1853–56). By using the herbal medicines she learned from her mother, Seacole ran an independent venture that focused on helping British soldiers after she was rejected to be part of the nursing contingent that included Florence Nightingale. Seacole's story was well-known upon the publication of her 1857 autobiography, Wonderful Adventures of Mrs. Seacole in Many Lands, and then she was forgotten for more than a century. The author purchased a portrait of Seacole in 2003, which started an arduous search for the truth behind her story. In this extremely well-researched biography, Rappaport illuminates Seacole's life, including not only her early years in Jamaica but also her work in Panama and her family's business ventures. VERDICT Rappaport digs deeply into often spotty and confusing records to uncover the life of a nurse who became salvation for soldiers fighting in Crimea.—John Rodzvilla
