Florence Nightingale for and against Rome: Her Early Correspondence with Henry Edward Manning

In 1917 Shane Leslie published a general article in The Dublin Review, quoting extensive passages from the extant correspondence between Florence Nightingale and Henry Edward Manning, the bulk of it written in 1852 when Nightingale was considering conversion to Roman Catholicism. The letters are of great importance for understanding her character and eventual theological position. Although only Nightingale’s part of the correspondence is extant, it is of value, as well, to students of Manning and is of particular interest for the background it provides to disagreements between the Nightingale and Mary Stanley nursing contingents in the Crimea, 1854–1855.