(no subject)

[skygiants]

Apparently there's a DW revival going on, and definitely several new people following this journal; hello and welcome, new people! This shift to an alternate universe where everyone uses DW mostly seems to have happened while I was traveling, so it's a bit confusing, but I'm definitely enthusiastic about it.

Also while I was traveling, I read Eighty Days: Nellie Bly and Elizabeth Bisland's History-Making Race Around the World, as recommended by innerbrat. This turned out to be an excellent choice to read on a plane because no matter how many delays we hit, Nellie Bly and Elizabeth Bisland were always having a much more difficult and stressful time traveling than I was.

I knew a bit about Nellie Bly already; in the 1880s she made a name for herself as one of very, very few big-name female reporters by undertaking such Adventures in Investigative Journalism as 'going undercover in an insane asylum,' 'going undercover in a charity hospital', and 'going undercover to buy a Congressman,' and, moreover, doing so while being a Plucky Young Girl Of But Twenty-Odd Summers.

One slow news day, while racking her brains for a suitable clickbait headline, Nellie Bly (real name Elizabeth Cochran) decided that it was time to try to beat the (fictional) Round the World in Eighty Days record.

NELLIE BLY'S EDITOR: If we send someone around the world by themselves, it's going to be a man.
NELLIE BLY, FAMOUSLY: "Start the man, and I'll start the same day for some other newspaper and beat him."

And thus Nellie Bly was promised the job of racing round the world, if it ever happened, which it didn't until a year later when sales at the World were declining enough that the clickbait potential of "THE WORLD SENDS YOUNG LADY ROUND THE WORLD" started to look extremely appealing. So! Nellie immediately set off for Europe, carrying a single handbag (she wanted to bring a spare dress, but it wouldn't fit in the handbag).

A few hours later, a rival paper, the Cosmpolitan, decided this was a GREAT IDEA and called up freelance poet and essayist Elizabeth Bisland.

ELIZABETH BISLAND'S EDITOR: Elizabeth Bisland, would you like to go around the world starting today immediately?
ELIZABETH BISLAND: .... I write for the literature column??
ELIZABETH BISLAND'S EDITOR: Yes but you're a woman who writes for the newspaper and we really don't have many of those onhand SO ....
ELIZABETH BISLAND: I have plans? Friends are coming to tea tomorrow? I hate the idea of being famous???

The Historical Record is unclear on exactly what Elizabeth Bisland's editor said to convince her to set off around the world in spite of these objections, but suggests that it may have involved arguments like 'if you go, we'll hire you full-time and you won't be freelance anymore!' and, conversely, 'if you don't go, we might not hire you anymore AT ALL.'

Thus: A RACE. Elizabeth Bisland heading westwards, towards California and then across the Pacific, with three or four trunks full of luggage; Nellie Bly already off East across the Atlantic, with her single handbag and no idea that she was actually having a race at all. (She didn't actually get the message until she was in Hong Kong and was NOT thrilled.)

The book follows the racers throughout their adventure, with various detours into the historical and cultural context through with they traveled -- including, significantly, the fact that their routes round the world depended entirely on the infrastructure of British Imperialism At Its Worst. (Somewhat hilariously, Nellie Bly seems to have come out of the experience so annoyed at the British as a whole that she signed up to report from Austria in WWI purely out of spite.)

Which is not to say that either Nellie or Elizabeth was a model of anti-Imperialist sentiment. Indeed, the author of this book spends a fair bit of time being mildly disappointed in Nellie Bly for missing all kinds of opportunities to do the kind of investigative progressive journalism for which she was previously known while she was traveling. Instead, Nellie seems to have spent most of her trip stressing about boat delays, fending off unwanted suitors, and complaining about the English.

Meanwhile, Elizabeth Bisland, who didn't want to be traveling in the first place, hit Japan and was like 'travel is great! foreign lands are beautiful! I love adventure! can I just be a travel writer now?'

...and meanwhile meanwhile, the book's author would like to take the opportunity to remind us that the Opium Wars that let Nellie Bly and Elizabeth Bisland visit China were extremely bad, being a stoker on one of the steam-ships that took Nellie Bly and Elizabeth Bisland across the ocean was a terrible career that often led straight to an early grave, and generally nineteenth-century Imperialism was just the absolute worst. Which I do appreciate!

The story of the race itself is absolutely compelling, but the best actual fact I learned from this book was that after Nellie Bly made herself and The World famous, LOTS of papers started employing 'stunt girls' - female reporters, often multiple women writing under a shared pen name - to perform Daring Journalistic Exploits. Why is there not already a trashy-but-compelling costume television series about a ring of nineteenth-century stunt girls going undercover and having adventures? SOMEONE GET ON THIS.

Comments

[sovay]

Meanwhile, Elizabeth Bisland, who didn't want to be traveling in the first place, hit Japan and was like 'travel is great! foreign lands are beautiful! I love adventure! can I just be a travel writer now?'

Did she?

[skygiants]

She spent the next year writing about her travels in Europe - before the race, she had never left the country - and though after that she did more fiction and essay-writing, she later went back and spent significant amounts of time in Japan and China.

(I actually want to hunt down some of her essay collections now -- I'm intrigued by The Secret Life: Being the Book of a Heretic.)

[katherine]

I am considering reading this, having enjoyed your writeup a lot.

[skygiants]

I really enjoyed it! The topic is fascinating, and the book does a good job of covering it, I think - suspenseful narrative prose, but mostly avoiding the kind of too-novelistic digression into a historical person's THOUGHTS AND FEELINGS that always drops me right out of the prose and makes me wonder how they know.

[lemon_badgeress]

THAT WOULD BE AMAZING WHY CAN'T WE HAVE THE NICE THING

[skygiants]

There's so many sensationalist investigative articles to draw from! It practically writes itself!

[radiantfracture]

I love this idea. Can someone start it as a webseries or something?

[skygiants]

SOMEONE should! 'Plucky stunt girl' honestly should be a widely-used trope, there should already be at least five different variants.

[kore]

It seriously SCREAMS to be made into one of those prestige-yet-saucy BBC/PBS historical series.

[rachelmanija]

I had no idea shared pen names were a thing at that time period.

Also, I now want to read the reporting by Elizabeth Bisland

[skygiants]

It seems to have been more the idea of the newspaper editors (who would rather pay several lower-profile reporters writing under a shared name than one Star Nellie Bly) than of the women themselves, but I still want to know so much more about how that worked and the coordination of the various investigations!

In Seven Stages: A Flying Trip Round the World is available online and is definitely now on my list.

[kore]

Oh yeah, there were "house pen names" for magazines and newspapers going back quite a while. (The Federalist writers had shared pseudonyms, although that was for different reasons other than Yay Capitalism.)

[aeslis]

Basically your write-ups on books are the best. I don't care about non-fiction in the slightest and it's almost never compelling to me, but I love reading what you have to say about it. Funny how that works.

[skygiants]

That's really lovely to hear, thank you!! (History is just so frequently BIZARRE.)

[kore]

I have this! I need to read it, it sounds super fun.

the best actual fact I learned from this book was that after Nellie Bly made herself and The World famous, LOTS of papers started employing 'stunt girls' - female reporters, often multiple women writing under a shared pen name - to perform Daring Journalistic Exploits. Why is there not already a trashy-but-compelling costume television series about a ring of nineteenth-century stunt girls going undercover and having adventures?

....I FEEL I HAVE MISSED MY CALLING

[skygiants]

I finished the book and was IMMEDIATELY like 'well NOW I have three novel plots in my head that I don't have time to write!!'

[venetia_sassy]

Ooh, this sounds like great fun! I knew about Nellie Bly but not Elizabeth Bisland.

[skygiants]

She was significantly less famous! which seems to have been exactly what she wanted, so happy ending, in a way...

[tamsin]

I would watch that series!

[skygiants]

Undercover at socialist rallies! Undercover as an organ grinder! Undercover CROSS-DRESSING IN THE EAST END! And these were all just things that really happened, there are so many more that didn't but could have!

[oracne]

I would totally watch that show.

[skygiants]

IT WOULD BE SO GOOD. And so commercial! It wouldn't even need a justification to be sensationalist and slightly-over-the-top, it's all right there in the source material!

[lacewood]

This sounds awesome, definitely adding to the list. But MORE IMPORTANTLY, I really want this series now and am deeply saddened that it doesn't exist?? It doesn't even have to be television, I'll take any version!!

[skygiants]

ANY AND EVERY VERSION. Film, TV, romance novel series, pseudo-historical podcast...

[ambyr]

The show I want is set slightly later and is about Harry Houdini's crack team of girl psychic fraud investigators in the 1920s, but I would watch yours, too!

[skygiants]

I ALSO EXTREMELY WANT THAT SHOW. We can and should have both!

[landofnowhere]

Neat! This is giving me ideas about wanting to write Vesper Holly fanfic, though it would be so much work to research properly...

[skygiants]

Aw, Vesper Holly! I loved those books so much when I was young.

[landofnowhere]

I was pretty much obsessed in middle school! The first full-length story I wrote was a terrible self-insert Vesper Holly fanfic, I had a fansite, the whole works. The picture in this icon -- or possibly the one from my default icon -- is the Leonardo portait that Lloyd Alexander used as a model for the one in The Drackenberg Adventure, take your pick.

They don't hold up nearly as well as I'd like, but that makes them feel less intimidating as a place for getting back into writing fic. But on the other hand I also see the places where they're problematic, and don't want to replicate the problems.

But at least I'm having ideas now about what Vesper might be doing in the 1880's! You might not be aware that Lloyd Alexander published a final Vesper Holly adventure in 2005, which is not nearly as good as the rest (I thought the best part was the Weed quoting Coleridge at everyone, which says something). It wraps up the series with Vesper and the Weed having a daughter -- but clearly this is not going to stop Vesper from having further adventures!

[maplemood]

Oh my goodness, that TV series would be a DREAM--I'm imagining it would air on BBC for a season or two before being picked up by Netflix, and Heidi Thomas would write and produce. Also, I knew about Nelly Bly's trip around the world, but wasn't aware that it was actually a competition--that on its own would make a fantastic movie/miniseries!

[skygiants]

IN A PERFECT WORLD, WE WOULD ALREADY HAVE THIS.

And right? The fact that Nellie Bly ALSO wasn't aware that it was a competition honestly makes it even better. (Apparently there was a play written at some point in the 20th century, but of course it turned Elizabeth Bisland into a male love interest...)

[musesfool]

I would absolutely watch that TV series!

[skygiants]

You could have Daredevil Stunt Girl, Stunt Girl with Literary Ambitions, Women's Rights Stunt Girl, Worker's Rights Stunt Girl ...

[dhampyresa]

Why is there not already a trashy-but-compelling costume television series about a ring of nineteenth-century stunt girls going undercover and having adventures? SOMEONE GET ON THIS.

A TRAGEDY

[skygiants]

WHERE ARE ALL THE TV EXECS WHO FOLLOW MY BLOG, HOW DO I MAKE THEM COME HERE

[osprey_archer]

Why is there not already a trashy-but-compelling costume television series about a ring of nineteenth-century stunt girls going undercover and having adventures? SOMEONE GET ON THIS.

WHY DOES THIS NOT EXIST now that you've suggested it, it is all that I want in life, and there's no where to find it, WOE.

[skygiants]

THERE'S CANONICAL CROSS-DRESSING! STUNT GIRLS DID THAT!!!

[elsane]

a trashy-but-compelling costume television series about a ring of nineteenth-century stunt girls going undercover and having adventures?

I would read ALL THE BOOKS on this premise, this is amazing

[katta]

This is great, thanks for sharing it! I had heard of Nellie Bly, but not all the details. And I think these two were probably an inspiration to one of my faves, Swedish journalist Barbro Alving, who also went around the world but much later (mid-20th century), and who reported from the Spanish civil war while pregnant, and stuff like that.