Her first book as a historian, a biography of
Florence Nightingale published in 1950 by
Constable, took her straight to the top of her profession. was a study of the
Charge of the Light Brigade, a military disaster during the
Crimean War and one of the defining events of the Victorian age. It became her most popular book, and afterwards she explained to a television audience how she wrote it: working at a gallop through thirty-six hours non-stop without food or other break until the last gun was fired, when she poured a stiff drink and slept for two days. She became an honorary fellow of St Hilda's College (her alma mater) in 1967. == References ==