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In Search of Mary Seacole: The Making of a Black Cultural Icon and Humanitarian Audiobook
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From New York Times bestselling author Helen Rappaport comes a superb and revealing biography of Mary Seacole that is testament to her remarkable achievements and corrective to the myths that have grown around her.
Raised in Jamaica, Mary Seacole first came to England in the 1850s after working in Panama. She wanted to volunteer as a nurse and aide during the Crimean War. When her services were rejected, she financed her own expedition to Balaclava, where her reputation for her nursing—and for her compassion—became almost legendary.
Popularly known as “Mother Seacole,” she was the most famous Black celebrity of her generation—an extraordinary achievement in Victorian Britain. She regularly mixed with illustrious royal and military patrons, and they, along with grateful war veterans, helped her recover financially when she faced bankruptcy. However, after her death in 1881, she was largely forgotten.
More recently, her profile has been revived and her reputation lionized, with a statue of her standing outside St. Thomas’s Hospital in London and her portrait—rediscovered by the author—now on display in the National Portrait Gallery.
This book is the fruit of almost twenty years of research and reveals the truth about Seacole’s personal life, her “rivalry” with Florence Nightingale, and other misconceptions.
Vivid and moving, In Search of Mary Seacole shows that reality is often more remarkable and more dramatic than the legend.
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“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 Sunday Times (London)
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“Readers will be swept away.”
— People -
“A multifaceted account. Grippingly and thoroughly researched.”
— Harper’s Bazaar -
“Sheds light on the life of a woman who, in her own day, was as famous as Florence Nightingale.”
— New York Times Book Review -
“A truly remarkable medical pioneer.”
— Literary Review -
“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.”
— The Times (London) -
“Riveting…A strong-willed woman revived by an indefatigable biographer.”
— Kirkus Reviews (starred review) -
“A fascinating reclamation of the story of a remarkable woman.”
— Booklist -
“Impressive. The Seacole we meet in these pages is enterprising, intrepid, and, really, rather shrewd.”
— The Daily Telegraph (London) -
“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.”
— Country Life -
“An invaluable contribution to the scholarship on Seacole. Rappaport paints a vivid picture. A welcome contribution to our understanding of this truly remarkable medical pioneer.”
— Literary Review -
“Rappaport’s eloquently argued work sets the record straight by revealing the life story of a most extraordinary woman.”
— The Herald (Glasgow)
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About Helen Rappaport
Helen Rappaport is the author of a number of historical works. She studied Russian at Leeds University and is a specialist in Russian and Victorian history. Her book The Romanov Sisters was a New York Times bestseller. She was an actress who appeared on British TV and in films until the early 1990s, and then focused on writing. In 2003 she discovered and purchased an 1869 portrait of Mary Seacole that now hangs in the National Portrait Gallery, sparking a long investigation into Seacole's life and career. A fluent Russian speaker and a specialist in Russian history and nineteenth-century women's history, she has become well known as a Russian translator in the theater and has translated all seven of Anton Chekhov's plays.