Wonderful Adventures of Mrs Seacole in Many Lands

Written in 1857 by a free-born Jamaican Creole, Wonderful Adventures of Mrs. Seacole in Many Lands presents a special kind of success story. With delightful urbanity and wit, Mary Seacole recounts her childhood as a daughter of a Scottish army officer and free black boardinghouse keeper, her years as a storekeeper in a Central American frontier town, and her role as a battlefield "doctress" in the Crimean War. Seeking to reconcile her desire for economic stability and worldly recognition with the more socially acceptable role of selfless helpmate to men, Mary Seacole emerges as an independent and respected maternal figure, the model of female achievement in Victorian culture, and a symbol of "home" to British soldiers alienated by war.