author
Sarah A. Tooley
1857–1946
A lively English journalist and biographer, she became known for sharp, wide-ranging interviews and for writing about remarkable women of her time. Her best-known work, a biography of Florence Nightingale, helped keep Nightingale’s story in front of a broad reading public.
1 Audiobook
The life of Florence Nightingale
by Sarah A. Tooley
About the author
Born Sarah Anne Southall in Staffordshire, she studied literature at University College London and married the minister George W. Tooley in 1882. After that, she built a career in journalism and authorship, writing biographical sketches and interviewing prominent women across many fields.
She was especially associated with literary journalism in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and later readers have continued to notice her for books such as The Life of Florence Nightingale and The Personal Life of Queen Victoria. Her work often focused on public figures, reformers, and women whose lives were shaping modern Britain.
Some sources list her birth year as 1856, while others give 1857, but they agree that she died in 1946. A clearly suitable portrait image could not be confirmed from the sources reviewed, so no profile image is included.