Mary Seacole was born a free black woman in Jamaica in the early nineteenth century. In her long and varied life, she travelled in Central America, Russia, and Europe; found work as an inn-keeper and as a `doctress' during the Crimean War; and became a famed heroine, the author of her own biography, in Britain. As this work shows, Mary Seacole had a sharp instinct for hypocrisy as well as ripe taste for sarcasm. Frequently we see her joyfully rise to mock the limitations artificially imposed on her as a black woman. She emerges from her writings as an individual with a zest for travel, adventure, and independence, a stimulating and inspiring figure.