This writing case belonged to Florence Nightingale, who came to fame as ‘The Lady of the Lamp’ during the Crimean War of 1853 – 56, in which Britain, allied with France and the Ottoman Empire, defeated Russia. As well as offering an entry point to studying Nightingale as a famous person, the case can prompt enquiries into how people wrote and learned to write in Victorian times and, more generally, how methods of communication have changed.