Description
Known as a trail blazer in many ways and an extraordinary reporter, Nellie Bly accomplished what not even Jules Verne’s Phileas Fogg could accomplish: she traveled around the world in 72 days, then she wrote Around the World in Seventy-Two Days.This amazing travelogue records her daring exploits in Bly’s enthusiastic, critical and highly entertaining style. It was not only Verne’s novel that inspired Bly to embark on the journey – it was also the recognition that the technologic development that took place since Fogg undertook his epic journey and the 1873 opening of the Suez Canal made it possible to reduce the time necessary to go around the world, a recognition that Bly fearlessly set off to verify.Bly boarded the Augusta Victoria on the 14thof November, 1889,and set off, having the itinerary England-France-the Suez Canal-Colombo-Singapore-Japan. During the journey, she used steamships, trains and whatever means of transport she could find, sending brief reports through telegraph as she progressed. The journey was highly publicized; what’s more, it was even made into a contest – the Cosmopolitan sent another female reporter Elizabeth Bisland to undertake the journey the other way around the globe. Bly completed her journey on the 21th of January, arriving in San Francisco first, then going on to reach New York on the 25th. Elizabeth Bisland arrived back in New York only on the 30th of January, so Bly was the uncontested holder of the world record (not for long, though, as a few months later another traveler, George Francis Train, did the journey in 67 days).The journey was an incredible endeavor and the resulting book is incredible, too. Bly’s style is captivating, factual at some points, poetic at others. She describes the places she had visited, the people she had met and the adventures she had been through in a deeply understanding way, without being judgmental and with the accuracy to be expected from a world-class reporter.
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