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The White Linen Nurse
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This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work.
As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.
304 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1913
About the author
Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
76 books11 followersEleanor Hallowell Abbott, born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, was a nationally recognized American author. She was a frequent contributor to The Ladies' Home Journal.aEleanor Hallowell Abbott was a nationally recognized American author. She was a frequent contributor to The Ladies' Home Journal. Born: September 22, 1872, Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States Died: June 4, 1958, Portsmouth, New Hampshire, United States Spouse: Fordyce Coburn (m. 1908) Parents: Edward Abbott Education: Radcliffe College
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Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
May 26, 2020
An old-fashioned doctor/nurse story with a small girl who needs love. It’s quirky and a little odd but overall is heartwarming and memorable.
Content: some profanity
Content: some profanity
July 21, 2026
read this on apple books bc it was free and by the end i knew exactly why it was free
March 9, 2015
Ms Abbot's books are usually cosy, lightly romantic, comforting reads. The characters are usually compassionate and kind. The heroine usually gets herself in a spot or finds herself very lonely and poor, and somehow it all comes out right in the end. Sort of thing I like to read before bedtime.
And then there's The White Linen Nurse. It's OK, but it breaks all the norms of her books and introduces one I don't care for. It starts the day of graduation from nursing training, back in the day when "nursing" took place in the home of the patient (and was therefore the province of those wealthy enough to afford a live-in "special"). Rae loses her head--is it spring fever, post-finals exhaustion, or a nervous breakdown? This leads to a discussion of why she and her roommates went into nursing training, with startling results.
But you know, I can't love Rae. Or her roommates. Or anyone in this book. They are all cross, selfish, unpleasant people. And Rae spends her time manipulating her man, and teaching a six-year-old girl to do the same. I suppose back in the days when "the battle of the sexes" was seen as manifestly absurd (because, take your pick: either men are superior and we all know that, or women are, and ditto), it was funny to many readers. Back in those days a man going on a month-long bender was "funny if you tell it right" (I refer you to some of the early Mickey Mouse cartoons, particularly those starring Goofy).
I read it through, but I won't be reading it again. It was a real disappointment.
And then there's The White Linen Nurse. It's OK, but it breaks all the norms of her books and introduces one I don't care for. It starts the day of graduation from nursing training, back in the day when "nursing" took place in the home of the patient (and was therefore the province of those wealthy enough to afford a live-in "special"). Rae loses her head--is it spring fever, post-finals exhaustion, or a nervous breakdown? This leads to a discussion of why she and her roommates went into nursing training, with startling results.
But you know, I can't love Rae. Or her roommates. Or anyone in this book. They are all cross, selfish, unpleasant people. And Rae spends her time manipulating her man, and teaching a six-year-old girl to do the same. I suppose back in the days when "the battle of the sexes" was seen as manifestly absurd (because, take your pick: either men are superior and we all know that, or women are, and ditto), it was funny to many readers. Back in those days a man going on a month-long bender was "funny if you tell it right" (I refer you to some of the early Mickey Mouse cartoons, particularly those starring Goofy).
I read it through, but I won't be reading it again. It was a real disappointment.
September 2, 2013
What I learned from this book:
-Nothing, oh wait, maybe that dialogues really make or break a story.
This has to be one of the most weird stories I have ever read (or heard, rather). It started out okay with a nurse who had an existential crisis, but then quickly deteriorated into somewhat of a romance that made me think the writer must have been a student in a nursing college and written down her fantasies about some senior doctor. I found non of the characters endearing, at times they were downright annoying. Who takes on a job as a "housekeeper and babysitter for life", when you have some sort of a degree? And from my imagination the doctor must have been pretty old and he was a bit of a douchebag, so I did not get the lovestory either.
But that's what you get for randomly choosing a book from librivox. ;-)
-Nothing, oh wait, maybe that dialogues really make or break a story.
This has to be one of the most weird stories I have ever read (or heard, rather). It started out okay with a nurse who had an existential crisis, but then quickly deteriorated into somewhat of a romance that made me think the writer must have been a student in a nursing college and written down her fantasies about some senior doctor. I found non of the characters endearing, at times they were downright annoying. Who takes on a job as a "housekeeper and babysitter for life", when you have some sort of a degree? And from my imagination the doctor must have been pretty old and he was a bit of a douchebag, so I did not get the lovestory either.
But that's what you get for randomly choosing a book from librivox. ;-)
September 17, 2013
This book was suppose to be funny but it got off to a slow start. The writing reminded me of Anne of Green Gables but instead of being charmed, it was more annoying in the first half of the book.
However, halfway through, it did have quite a bit of humor and I began to really enjoy it. The main character really grew on me and charmed me as she did the other characters in the story.
Of course, due to the time in which it was written, the characters are very stereotyped, especially the women as inferior to the men on general principles. But the story shows how the woman without enough brains to be a nurse and wife has more than enough brains to get her own way in her marriage.
However, halfway through, it did have quite a bit of humor and I began to really enjoy it. The main character really grew on me and charmed me as she did the other characters in the story.
Of course, due to the time in which it was written, the characters are very stereotyped, especially the women as inferior to the men on general principles. But the story shows how the woman without enough brains to be a nurse and wife has more than enough brains to get her own way in her marriage.
February 22, 2020
This book doesn't have much to do with nurses let alone white linen ones.
April 21, 2025
This book didn’t age well. Cringy.
August 11, 2015
I have read other books from this time period that I have enjoyed. I do not care for this author's style of writing. I thought this was a strange book with a lot of extraneous words. Here is an excerpt from the end of chapter 2 and the beginning of 3.
Somewhere in the dusty, indifferent street a bird's note rang out in one wild, delirious ecstasy of untrammeled springtime. To all intents and purposes the sound might have been the one final signal that Rae Malgregor's jangled nerves were waiting for.
"Oh, I am crazy, am I?" she cried with a new, fierce joy. "Oh, I am crazy, am I? Well, I'll go ask the Superintendent and see if I am! Oh, surely they wouldn't try and make me graduate if I really was crazy!"
Madly she bolted for her bureau, and snatching her own motto down, crumpled its face securely against her skirt and started for the door. Just what the motto was no one but herself knew. Sprawling in paint-brush hieroglyphics on a great flapping sheet of brown wrapping-paper, the sentiment, whatever it was, had been nailed face down to the wall for three tantalizing years.
"No you don't!" cried Zillah now, as she saw the mystery threatening so meanly to escape her.
"No you don't!" cried Helene. "You've seen our mottoes—and now we're going to see yours!"
Almost crazed with new terror Rae Malgregor went dodging to the right,—to the left,—to the right again,—cleared the rocking-chair,—a scuffle with padded hands,—climbed the trunk,—a race with padded feet,—reached the door-handle at last, yanked the door open, and with lungs and temper fairly bursting with momentum, shot down the hall,—down some stairs,—down some more hall,—down some more stairs, to the Superintendent's office where, with her precious motto still clutched securely in one hand, she broke upon that dignitary's startled, near-sighted vision like a young whirl-wind of linen and starch and flapping brown paper. Breathlessly, without prelude or preamble, she hurled her grievance into the older woman's grievance-dulled ears.
"Give me back my own face!" she demanded peremptorily. "Give me back my own face, I say! And my own hands! I tell you I want my own hands! Helene and Zillah say I'm insane! And I want to go home!"
CHAPTER III
Like a short-necked animal elongated suddenly to the cervical proportions of a giraffe, the Superintendent of Nurses reared up from her stoop-shouldered desk-work and stared forth in speechless astonishment across the top of her spectacles.
Exuberantly impertinent, ecstatically self-conscious, Rae Malgregor repeated her demand. To her parched mouth the very taste of her own babbling impudence refreshed her like the shock and prickle of cracked ice.
"I tell you I want my own face again! And my own hands!" she reiterated glibly. "I mean the face with the mortgage in it, and the cinders—and the other human expressions!" she explained. "And the nice grubby country hands that go with that sort of a face!"
Very accusingly she raised her finger and shook it at the
Superintendent's perfectly livid countenance.
"Oh, of course I know I wasn't very much to look at. But at least I matched! What my hands knew, I mean, my face knew! Pies or plowing or May-baskets, what my hands knew my face knew! That's the way hands and faces ought to work together! But you? you with all your rules and your bossing and your everlasting 'S—sh! S—sh!' you've snubbed all the know-anything out of my face—and made my hands nothing but two disconnected machines—for somebody else to run! And I hate you! You're a Monster! You're a ——, everybody hates you!"
Somewhere in the dusty, indifferent street a bird's note rang out in one wild, delirious ecstasy of untrammeled springtime. To all intents and purposes the sound might have been the one final signal that Rae Malgregor's jangled nerves were waiting for.
"Oh, I am crazy, am I?" she cried with a new, fierce joy. "Oh, I am crazy, am I? Well, I'll go ask the Superintendent and see if I am! Oh, surely they wouldn't try and make me graduate if I really was crazy!"
Madly she bolted for her bureau, and snatching her own motto down, crumpled its face securely against her skirt and started for the door. Just what the motto was no one but herself knew. Sprawling in paint-brush hieroglyphics on a great flapping sheet of brown wrapping-paper, the sentiment, whatever it was, had been nailed face down to the wall for three tantalizing years.
"No you don't!" cried Zillah now, as she saw the mystery threatening so meanly to escape her.
"No you don't!" cried Helene. "You've seen our mottoes—and now we're going to see yours!"
Almost crazed with new terror Rae Malgregor went dodging to the right,—to the left,—to the right again,—cleared the rocking-chair,—a scuffle with padded hands,—climbed the trunk,—a race with padded feet,—reached the door-handle at last, yanked the door open, and with lungs and temper fairly bursting with momentum, shot down the hall,—down some stairs,—down some more hall,—down some more stairs, to the Superintendent's office where, with her precious motto still clutched securely in one hand, she broke upon that dignitary's startled, near-sighted vision like a young whirl-wind of linen and starch and flapping brown paper. Breathlessly, without prelude or preamble, she hurled her grievance into the older woman's grievance-dulled ears.
"Give me back my own face!" she demanded peremptorily. "Give me back my own face, I say! And my own hands! I tell you I want my own hands! Helene and Zillah say I'm insane! And I want to go home!"
CHAPTER III
Like a short-necked animal elongated suddenly to the cervical proportions of a giraffe, the Superintendent of Nurses reared up from her stoop-shouldered desk-work and stared forth in speechless astonishment across the top of her spectacles.
Exuberantly impertinent, ecstatically self-conscious, Rae Malgregor repeated her demand. To her parched mouth the very taste of her own babbling impudence refreshed her like the shock and prickle of cracked ice.
"I tell you I want my own face again! And my own hands!" she reiterated glibly. "I mean the face with the mortgage in it, and the cinders—and the other human expressions!" she explained. "And the nice grubby country hands that go with that sort of a face!"
Very accusingly she raised her finger and shook it at the
Superintendent's perfectly livid countenance.
"Oh, of course I know I wasn't very much to look at. But at least I matched! What my hands knew, I mean, my face knew! Pies or plowing or May-baskets, what my hands knew my face knew! That's the way hands and faces ought to work together! But you? you with all your rules and your bossing and your everlasting 'S—sh! S—sh!' you've snubbed all the know-anything out of my face—and made my hands nothing but two disconnected machines—for somebody else to run! And I hate you! You're a Monster! You're a ——, everybody hates you!"
August 9, 2020
Insight into human nature.
I recently found this author and have been binging on these refreshing stories of romance and insight into what makes us uniquely human! Delightful!
I recently found this author and have been binging on these refreshing stories of romance and insight into what makes us uniquely human! Delightful!
October 3, 2020
This book reflects the ideas of a different era. I enjoy this author, but this particular book was slow and difficult. I got tired of the Senior Surgeon 's nastiness.
March 16, 2013
Good heavens, let's talk about what's wrong with this book. The first thing is the title: the White Linen Nurse is only a white linen nurse for half an hour. The book opens with the White Linen Nurse (a.k.a. Rae Malgregor, although she's referred to as "the white linen nurse" throughout) having an existential crisis in her room on the last day of nursing college. Her roommates tell her why they wanted to be nurses, which makes the whole segment clunky and awkward. Rae, Zillah and Helene have all been roommates for three years, but the author wants to introduce them so they have a long, oddly dramatic, second-night-in-the-dorm, why are you here? conversation. It's a mystery why Zillah and Helene need such a long introduction, because Helene never appears in the book again and Zillah dies casually offscreen. Helene wants to be a nurse because it's noble, Zillah because she's slutty and likes danger. Rae takes her existential crisis down the head nurse's office, and the senior surgeon passes through and offers to take her on an exciting meningitis case. In the back of the senior surgeon's car, Rae finds his little, crippled daughter, along for the ride. Rae refuses to see the meningitis case and stays in the car mothering the crippled girl because she doesn't want to be a nurse anymore. This angers the senior surgeon, he drives recklessly, flips the car, lands underneath it, and Rae has to follow his instructions exactly to drive the car off him before it catches fire. What follows is a long interlude while Rae, the senior surgeon, and the shrill, crippled child wait for help. The senior surgeon proposes marriage, Rae accepts, concussed though they both may be. The senior surgeon does not want a wife to be normal and wifely to him, he says "general heart work for two" and makes the proposal sound different than "I want a cook/nursemaid who can't quit," but that's what he means. The high-pitched little girl does like Rae, and Rae likes her. So they move in together in a non-marital way and nothing much happens until
I listened to this book on Librivox. The reader was great.
I listened to this book on Librivox. The reader was great.
February 10, 2009
This is a sweet story... reminds me of Jean Webster's "Daddy Long Legs".
December 22, 2009
pleasant little love story
Want to Read
August 21, 2017Dnf. Didn't get past the second chapter. It was totally disinteresting.
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews