Raised on a remote sheep farm in the Mid Canterbury region of New Zealand's South Island, Emily Peters (1858-1927) had a remarkable career as a nurse. In the 1890s she travelled to the United Kingdom to train at Westminster Hospital. She then nursed in England and served as a nurse in the South African War and in Serbia and Egypt during World War I. In this intriguing book, two authors, Joan Woodward and Glenys Mitchell, have linked Emily Peter's surviving papers - among them a fascinating nursing casebook and a vivid war diary - into a narrative account of an extraordinary life of devotion to helping others. The book illuminates the history of nursing in England and New Zealand. It also casts a light on an emerging New Zealand nationhood and on women's emancipation. In Emily Peter's life and writings readers will see New Zealanders of British descent becoming a distinct people with their own national characteristics over a single generation.