First published 2013
In November 1889, two accomplished journalists embark on competing journeys to circle the globe faster than Jules Verne's fictional Phileas Fogg. Nellie Bly, a tenacious reporter for Joseph Pulitzer's World newspaper, departs New York by steamship. The same day, Elizabeth Bisland from The Cosmopolitan magazine heads in the opposite direction by train. Both women aim to complete their circumnavigation in under eighty days. Bly, a scrappy investigative journalist from Pennsylvania coal country, built her reputation exposing social injustice through undercover reporting. Bisland, born into Southern aristocracy and known as metropolitan journalism's most beautiful woman, preferred literature to sensational news. Despite their contrasting backgrounds, both carved successful careers in the male-dominated newspaper world. Their race spans twenty-eight thousand miles across exotic locations from Hong Kong's back alleys to Ceylon tea plantations, through snowbound mountains and storm-tossed seas. The competition captivates the nation as each woman travels alone, knowing any delay could determine victory or defeat. Matthew Goodman recreates this true story of two pioneering women racing not just around the world, but through the heart of the Victorian age itself.
Genres: historical-fiction, 20th-century, adventure, biographical-fiction, 19th-century
Vibes: fast-paced, thought-provoking
Tropes: enemies-to-lovers, race-against-time
Setting: Ceylon, Hong Kong, New York, Pennsylvania
Period: 1889, Victorian Age
453 pages · Hardcover · Ballantine Books