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A Winter on the Nile

Anthony Sattin

3.75 · Rating details · 56 ratings · 9 reviews

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.

This book follows her journey along the Nile: a romantic adventure, but al ...more

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Hardcover, 304 pages

Published May 6th 2010 by Hutchinson

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Jan 21, 2017 Gerry rated it really liked it · review of another edition

This is the story of two young travellers who both set out on a trip to Egypt at much the same time. Florence Nightingale left from England with a circle of friends and Gustave Flaubert left from France with a companion. Both were at a crossroads in their lives, Nightingale searching for a career, nursing her preference but her parents were totally against such a venture, and Flaubert was a young, at the time unpublished, French writer with ambitions to become one of the greats of literature.

The This is the story of two young travellers who both set out on a trip to Egypt at much the same time. Florence Nightingale left from England with a circle of friends and Gustave Flaubert left from France with a companion. Both were at a crossroads in their lives, Nightingale searching for a career, nursing her preference but her parents were totally against such a venture, and Flaubert was a young, at the time unpublished, French writer with ambitions to become one of the greats of literature.

They never knowingly met on the trip although they did travel on the same ferry from Alexandria to Cairo and with only 70 passengers on board it is possible that they did, without being aware of identity, see each other and indeed Flaubert did go below at one point when he recorded seeing, 'an English family; hideous, the mother looking like a sick old parrot'. In addition,. much later on they visited the same sights at different times and when at Asyut, making their way up to the Lyscopolis caves, the French party was taken by a guide to see footprints in the sand which they were told belonged to an Englishwoman who had been there a few days earlier. And Florence NIghtingale's party had indeed visited then.

Of the ferry trip to Cairo Nightingale recorded (she kept two diaries, one private and one for public consumption), 'The canal perfectly uninteresting' while Flaubert wrote, 'The banks flat and dead ...'. They were echoing views expressed by the writer Harriet Martineau who had visited Egypt a few years before as she had found her journey up the Nile, 'as serious a labour as the mind and spirit can be involved in'. Nightingale and Flaubert did not express many other views on the same topics because while Nightingale visited temples and dispensaries (to see how they worked and to view nursing facilities), Flaubert spent some of his time in the brothels and harems.

On their respective trips there was plenty of time for the travellers to reflect on their past and Nightingale spent quite some time thinking of her relationship with Richard Monckton Milnes, who had, back at home, raised the subject of marriage with her. Although she spoke of him as 'the man I adored' she was not for marriage for she objected to the role of women in that institution; she wanted a career, not to be tied down to a husband. Flaubert, on the other hand, was consumed with his passion to produce a great novel and when not thinking of that he wrote in his diary, 'I can see nothing better in the world for me than a nice, well heated room with the books I love and the leisure to enjoy them.' [Happiness indeed!]

So on they went, up and down the Nile, with Nightingale at Abu Simnel writing home about the cow-headed goddess Hathor, to whom the temple at Abu Simnel was dedicated. She wrote that Hathor was 'the nurse who fills heaven and earth with her beneficent acts'. This was exactly what Nightingale had decided she, too, wanted to do. And it was just beyond Abu Simnel that Flaubert first conceived the idea for his future novel. 'I have found it! Eureka! Eureka! I will call her Emma Bovary', his travelling companion recalled him saying a number of times, each time savouring the name Bovary. The winter on the Nile could certainly be said to have been the catalyst for both these travellers' future careers.

Near the end of their trip, the pair had differing views on Karnak with Nightingale writing, 'What do people come to Egypt for? I cannot think.' Flaubert meanwhile was sad at leaving the place and thought Karnak 'by far the finest place we have seen on this trip'. And there are plenty of other interesting comments on other parts of Egypt throughout the book.

By the time they had returned to Alexandria, Nightingale was convinced that she would become a nurse (and so she did as history records) and Flaubert, with his statement, 'I have a burning desire to write', knew that he was going to pen a famous novel on his return to France (and so he did).

Anthony Sattin gives us an excellent picture of Victorian Egypt and the leisurely way one travelled through it in those times, plus he presents superb character portraits of the two protagonists as they shadowed each other across Egypt. It is a most readable, highly informative and most enjoyable book - one can easily imagine that one is relaxing on a cange (one of the Nile cruising boats) as it makes it peaceful way down the river!
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May 08, 2013 Lisa rated it really liked it

This was very interesting to me. In part, it was interesting to see how the temples and cities in Egypt have changed over 160 years. Of course the way I saw them looks nothing like the sights Nightingale and Flaubert saw. Their individual stories were also intriguing. Their trips in 1849 were before either was famous so they were anonymous as they traveled at the same time to the same places, probably seeing but not recognizing one another. Their perspectives on the same trip were very different ...more

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Feb 21, 2013 Diane Challenor rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: our-amazon-library

I really enjoyed this book, well written with a excellent depth of knowledge about Egypt and the two travellers, that is, Florence Nightingale and Gustave Flaubert. The part I enjoyed the most was where the author, Anthony Sattin, shares extracts of Florence Nightingale's diaries and letters. I'm intrigued and surprised by Florence's beautiful prose, she has the ability to capture, in words, the atmosphere and beauty of the world around her. Also I am pleasantly surprised by her intelligence dem ...more

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Mar 15, 2018 BeesReads rated it it was amazing

Shelves: 2018, non-fiction

What a wonderful book! I got this from the library but I think I am going to buy a copy as it will bear another few readings. (I wasn't looking for it, it just presented itself to the corner of my eye when passing!)
Set in the first half of the 19th century, it is 'dramatized non-fiction'.. Based on the diaries of Florence Nightingale, Flaubert and Du Camp. (The author discovered the diaries of FN in the British Library and published them some years before writing this book.)
The setting is before ...more

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Sep 11, 2019 Diane rated it really liked it

Shelves: biography, history, natural-world, non-fiction, travel

This is the story of Florence nightingale and Gustave Flaubert travelling on the Nile. Sattin used extracts from their letters and diaries to show their separate journeys up and down the Nile at the same time in 1849. They do come across as entitled European tourists however as Egypt as a conquered nation run by the French and the British. However I was fascinated by Nightingale's journey and her world view. I only know of her Nursing Days but this shows her resistance to be married off which co ...more

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Nov 11, 2016 Magdah Amin rated it really liked it

May be if I was more objective, I would have rated it the The Five Full Stars, but I was not.
Generally Speaking .. I truly loved the novel, loved it so much, I loved to read about my country and to see it in the eyes of foreigners who loved it that much. I loved to read about one of the best, most beautiful trips one can ever go through, the River Nile Cruise (certainly it differs a lot now from that time of the novel (Winter 1849))

HOW DID THEY SEE MY COUNTRY ??

What would one ever write about h ...more

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Sep 09, 2015 Robert Parker rated it liked it · review of another edition

A wonderful read where two amazing personalities, Nightingale and Flaubert, happen to cross paths on the Nile. Again, we see the plight of the bright and ambitious woman forced to take a back seat to conventions of the time. We had just return from a trip down the exoctic Nile, so this book struck a responsive chord.

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May 17, 2016 Imogen rated it really liked it

Shelves: non-fiction, biography, british, victorian

Part dual biography, part travel history, part Egyptomania nostalgia. Delicious.

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Apr 24, 2015 Kay rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Interesting book about Florence Nightingale and Gustave Flaubert who both visited Egypt in 1849-50, their experiences and the effect it had on their subsequent careers.

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