Florence Nightingale "was not simply the lady with the lamp," wrote A. G. Gardiner in 1914; "she was the lady with the brain and the tyrannic will." The self-effacing figure of popular myth--the "ministering angel" who appeared from nowhere, "moved like a benediction through the horrors of the hospitals of Scutari," and returned home to live the life of an invalid--contrasts sharply with reality. By the time she sailed for Scutari in 1854, Nightingale had made several trips to Europe, traveled up the Nile, established political and literary contacts, and published her first pamphlet. Indeed, she was a prodigious writer who penned more than two hundred books, pamphlets, and reports; hundreds of private "notes"; and some twelve thousand letters, both personal and official, during her lifetime. Although she wrote frequently about faraway places, her days as a traveler ended when her public career began. Jane Robinson's Wayward Women: A Guide...