Wonderful Adventures of Mrs. Seacole in Many Lands

Written by Mary Seacole

Narrated by LibriVox Community

I should have thought that no preface would have been required to introduce Mrs. Seacole to the British public, or to recommend a book which must, from the circumstances in which the subject of it was placed, be unique in literature. If singleness of heart, true charity, and Christian works; if trials and sufferings, dangers and perils, encountered boldly by a helpless woman on her errand of mercy in the camp and in the battle-field, can excite sympathy or move curiosity, Mary Seacole will have many friends and many readers. She is no Anna Comnena, who presents us with a verbose history, but a plain truth-speaking woman, who has lived an adventurous life amid scenes which have never yet found a historian among the actors on the stage where they passed. I have witnessed her devotion and her courage; I have already borne testimony to her services to all who needed them. She is the first who has redeemed the name of “sutler” from the suspicion of worthlessness, mercenary baseness, and plunder; and I trust that England will not forget one who nursed her sick, who sought out her wounded to aid and succour them, and who performed the last offices for some of her illustrious dead. (Summary from the Preface by W. H. Russell)

• Language: English
• Publisher: LibriVox
• Release date: Aug 25, 2014

Mary Seacole

Mary Seacole (1805-1881) was a British-Jamaican nurse and healer. Born in Kingston to a Scottish father and a free Jamaican mother, Seacole was raised in a family of healers and doctresses skilled in the use of Caribbean and African herbal medicines. Seacole learned about hygiene, ventilation, and nutrition while working as a nurse at Blundell Hall, a home for injured and convalescent military and naval personnel. Legally classified as mulatto, Seacole identified herself as a Creole woman and remained proud of her Scottish and African ancestry throughout her life. After decades of experience in Jamaica, Cuba, Haiti, and the Bahamas, Seacole used her own resources to travel to Crimea, where she opened the British Hotel and took care of soldiers and officers injured during the brutal Crimean War. Although her service to England has been recognized by generations of historians and public figures alike—due in no small part to the success of her popular memoir Wonderful Adventures of Mrs. Seacole in Many Lands (1857)—Seacole has faced hostility from figures associated with Florence Nightingale, who disparage her unorthodox style of nursing. After the Crimean War ended in 1856, Seacole returned to England a bankrupt woman, having put the entirety of her earnings back into the upkeep of the British Hotel, which went under following the Treaty of Paris. Over the next several years, she became the center of a national fundraising campaign, which culminated in a public gala in 1857 attended by a crowd of 80,000 supporters. Largely forgotten by the end of her life, Seacole’s reputation and contribution to British society was recognized by historians and commemorative organizations in the late-twentieth century, culminating in her being awarded the Jamaican Order of Merit in 1991.