Inglis's younger sister Eva Helen Shaw McLaren wrote her biography '"Elsie Inglis, The Woman With the Torch"' in 1920, and in 2009 a coloured illustrated edition was published, a reference is to Florence Nightingale known as 'The Lady of the Lamp'. In Eva's papers was found an unpublished manuscript novel by Inglis, the "Story of a Modern Woman" whose heroine, Hildeguard Forrest, may be seen as autobiographical in part, and in a boating accident the narrator says 'in a sudden flash... suddenly realised she wasn't a coward'.