Nellie Bly

So I just finished reading *Around The World In Seventy-Two Days*, by investigative reporter Nellie Bly, in 1890. In case you don't know, she set off to see if Jules Verne's fictional account could not only be duplicated, but bettered. (She popped in to visit the Vernes at their home on her way through France. Jules Verne was utterly delighted by her feat.)

Again, this was an enchanting view into a time and place. I believe she was twenty-five when she set off, with a shocking lack of luggage, even to the minds of free-and-easy modern sorts as ourselves. Even more shocking in her day, she went off alone--meaning she had neither man nor gun with which to protect herself. "...I had such a strong belief in the world's greeting me as I greeted it, that I refused to arm myself. I knew if my conduct was proper I should always find men ready to protect me, let them be American, English, French, German, or anything else." (Wow, how many doctoral dissertations can you find in that statement? Go ahead--in the right crowd it is an evening's entertainment and conversation. Just make sure you have enough snackies and drinks.)

One hundred and twenty years ago, an educated and literate woman could innocently write "I somehow always connected Japan and its people with China and its people, believing the one no improvement on the other. I could not have made a greater mistake." She then proceeds to tell of how her experiences taught her that they were two very different cultures. Some of what she said made me blink, adoptive Angeleno as I am, but she belongs to her time and place as I do to mine, and no doubt back in the day, her stories were revealatory to plenty of Americans.

I had ordered this book at Metropolis Books, down in the historic core, a while back. I t came in and I went to pick it up shortly after the poor girl was found murdered. After finishing the volume, the irony was not lost on me, over the very different fates of these two young women.