Sarah Gamp

In her long, rambling speeches, she refers constantly to her friend Mrs. Harris as support for her questionable practices.

She became a notorious stereotype of untrained and incompetent nurses of the early Victorian era,[1] before the reforms of campaigners like Florence Nightingale.

[2][3] In an 1844 stage version of Martin Chuzzlewit authorised by Dickens at the Queen's Theatre Sarah Gamp was played by the actor and comedian Thomas Manders.

[4] Mrs. Gamp appears in Dickensian, at first nursing Little Nell at the Old Curiosity Shop and later tending to Silas Wegg (from Our Mutual Friend), played by Pauline Collins.

Nobel laureate William Faulkner considered Gamp among his favourite characters in popular literature.