Helen Rappaport.
HELEN RAPPAPORT: MARY SEACOLE BIOGRAPHY
IN SEARCH OF MARY SEACOLE: THE MAKING OF A CULTURAL ICON (2023)
CLICK HERE TO BUY THE BOOK AT AMAZON
Mary Seacole was born in Kingston, Jamaica in 1805. She worked from a young age at Blundell Hall - a boarding house run by her mother which also acted as a convalescent home for soldiers and sailors suffering from yellow fever and cholera. She began experiementing in medicine, first with her dlls, then with her pets, before helping her mother (who was a ‘doctress’ skilled in the medicinal use of herbs) treat humans. Her family had close ties with the army, which enabled Mary to watch the work of military doctors. She worked for several years as a nurse at Blundell Hall, including the treatment of patients of the cholera epidemic of 1850, in which 32,000 Jamaicans died. In 1851 she visited Panama, where her brother was working. Shortly afterwards Panama was struck by an epidemic of cholera; Seacole threw herself into treating those affected becoming herself infected with cholera, from which she recovered. In 1853 she heard word of the Crimean War and decided to move from Panama to Britain and volunteer as an army nurse. She was unsuccessful in obtaining a position, perhaps because of racial prejudice. Instead she travelled to Crimea using her own resources, and opened the British Hotel near Balaclava. Lacking building materials, she built the hotel from salvaged driftwood and packing cases.
The Literary Review wrote of the book: ‘Helen Rappaport has spent twenty years unravelling the enigma of Mary Seacole. Best known for her scintillating books on the Russian Revolution, Rappaport has doggedly scoured archives and unearthed records like a terrier worrying at a bone. Her book, the fruits of that research, is not only an account of Seacole’s life but also a record of the author’s journey of discovery, as much detective story.’
MEET THE AUTHOR
CLICK HERE FOR A VIDEO OF THE AUTHOR (4 MINUTES)
Helen Rappaport (born 1947) is a British writer and former actress. She took her degree in Russian and Leeds University, where she also embarked on an acting career of twenty years, mainly in television. In the 1990s she changed career to become a professional writer. One of her first books was ‘An Encyclopaedia of Women Social Reformers’; published in 2001, it won an award from the American Library Association. Her subsequent books have included biographical works on the Romanovs and Lenin, and an account of the Victorian cosmetics industry.
