[2] She was the eldest daughter and child of William Edward Nightingale (W.E.N) and his wife, Frances Smith who was often referred to as Fanny by family.

inherited was called "Lea Hall,"[5] and was rather "run-down and inconvenient for a fashionable young family,"[5] and so the Nightingales never lived there, instead it was transformed into a farmhouse, and W.E.N.

[5] The family lived solely in Lea Hurst until 1825, when they purchased Embley Park at the request of Fanny needing a home that wasn't so far away from social life and circles.

The Nightingale family "summered primarily at Lea Hurst on the edge of Derbyshire hills and spent the rest of the year, except for stays in London, at Embley Park.

"[5] Parthenope's health struggles did not stop at her traumatic start to life, but they continued to raise issues in her early adulthood and eventually even later.

Parthenope's fever and cough had led to consumption that the local doctors suggested would only be fixed if she were, "subjected to the full battery of leeches, bleedings, and blisters.

[5] In the future instances of sickness Florence was often called upon to be the caregiver for Parthenope, which may have led to some of the strain in their relationship after teenagehood because Parthenope's, "chronic health [had] aroused Fanny's protectiveness, and eventually cast the newly altruistic and always efficient Flo into the role of her sister's caretaker," and only as such in the eyes of her parents.

In the years following Parthenope and Florence's relationship didn't thrive, especially around the time of their mothers death in 1880, when it was said that, "each sister knew exactly what to do to enrage and upset the other.

[5] Florence was an enthusiastic supporter of her sister's writing career and even went so far as to take upon herself the coordination of the care Parthenope needed towards the end of her life.

[5] On 24 June 1858, Parthenope married Harry Verney, 2nd Baronet, MP for Buckingham, a supporter of liberal causes and possessor of the family seat, Claydon House.

Verney reached out and began to form a connection with the Nightingale family for this purpose and then eventually proposed marriage to Parthenope.

She had spent "years unable to sleep and relied massively on opiates to kill the pain," until she died of cancer on May 12, 1890, Florence's birthday.

[9] She also published five novels; Avenhoe (1867), Stone Edge (1868),[10] Lettice Lisle (1870),[11] Fernyhurst Court (1871),[12] and Llanaly Reefs (1873),[13] and a two-volume book, Peasant Properties and Other Selected Essays.

[13] One of Parthenope's earlier works, Stone Edge,[10] was "remarkably unsentimental and feminist," the books subject and the way in which "she presents" her setting of "preindustrial Derbyshire," shows that "Verney use[d] her novel to argue that industrialization tended to free women from domestic tyranny, [which was] a radical [and feminist] idea for her time.