A Winter on the Nile

In the winter of 1849, Florence Nightingale was an unknown 29-year-old - beautiful, well-born and deeply unhappy. After clashing with her parents over her refusal to marry, she had been offered a lifeline by family friends who suggested a trip to Egypt, a country which she had always longed to visit.By an extraordinary coincidence, taking the same boat from Alexandria was an unpublished French writer, Gustave Flaubert. Like Nightingale, he was at the crossroads in his life that was to lead to futureacclaim and literary triumph. Egypt for him represented escape and freedom as well as inspiration.But as a wealthy young man travelling with male friends, he had access to an altogether different Egpyt: where Nightingale sought out temples and dispensaries, Flaubert visited brothels and harems.In this beguiling book, Anthony Sattin takes a key moment in the lives of two extraordinary figures on the brink of international fame, and provides a fascinating insight into the early days of travel to one ofthe greatest tourist destinations on the planet.

Vorwort
Florence Nightingale, Gustave Flaubert and the temptations of Egypt

Autorentext

Anthony Sattin is the author of several highly acclaimed books, including Lifting the Veil, The Pharaoh's Shadow and The Gates of Africa. He discovered and edited two exceptional manuscripts, Harriet Tytler's unique memoir of the Indian Mutiny of 1857, and Florence Nightingale's letters home from her journey of self-discovery up the Nile in 1849-1850.

For the past decade, he has been a regular reviewer of non-fiction -primarily for the Sunday Times, for whom he wrote a weekly book column for seven years. His journalism and travel writing have also appeared in a range of publications, including the Sunday Times, Daily Telegraph, Financial Times, Independent, Guardian, Spectator and Conde Nast Traveller. He is a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and sits on the editorial board of Geographical Magazine. He was recently named one of ten key influences in travel writing by Conde Nast Traveller and was runner-up in the 2007 Travel Writer of the Year awards.

Klappentext

'Deliciously compelling ' Simon Sebag Montefiore, Daily Telegraph Books of the Year

In the winter of 1849, Florence Nightingale was an unknown 29-year-old - beautiful, well-born and deeply unhappy. After clashing with her parents over her refusal to marry, she had been offered a lifeline by family friends who suggested a trip to Egypt, a country which she had always longed to visit.

By an extraordinary coincidence, taking the same boat from Alexandria was an unpublished French writer, Gustave Flaubert. Like Nightingale, he was at the crossroads in his life that was to lead to future
acclaim and literary triumph. Egypt for him represented escape and freedom as well as inspiration.

But as a wealthy young man travelling with male friends, he had access to an altogether different Egpyt: where Nightingale sought out temples and dispensaries, Flaubert visited brothels and harems.

In this beguiling book, Anthony Sattin takes a key moment in the lives of two extraordinary figures on the brink of international fame, and provides a fascinating insight into the early days of travel to one of the greatest tourist destinations on the planet.

'Some of the finest writing of the year... Sattin... made his principle characters, the unlikely pairing of Gustave Flaubert and Florence Nightingale, dance a ghostly polka as they shadowed each other across Egypt'
Hugh Thomson, Independent Books of the Year

'A fascinating glimpse into their lives before they were famous . . . a revealing look at how tourism used to be '
Financial Times Books of the Year

'Anthony Sattin's study itself has a dreamlike quality . . . he movingly reminds us of how, in the midst of life, those destined for greatness have no more idea where they are going than the rest of us '
Sunday Times