Reporter and editor Kroeger was amazed to discover that not a single comprehensive biography had ever been written about the famous "girl" reporter Nellie Bly (1864-1922). Bly was renowned for her pluck and daring, her humanitarianism, and her struggles as one of the first woman industrialists. Unfortunately, Bly kept no journals and wrote few letters, but Kroeger has managed to fashion a compelling and detailed portrait based on Bly's newspaper work and the astonishing number of court documents her litigious activities generated. Bly, who was born Elizabeth Jane Cochran, vowed early on to be self-sufficient, but her entry into journalism was pure serendipity. She had written a scathing letter to the editor after reading a rabidly misogynist column in a Pittsburgh paper. Her verve caught the editor's attention, and soon "Nellie Bly" was front-page copy as she became one of the first "stunt" reporters to go under cover for a story when she feigned insanity and infiltrated a state-run asylum. Her next escapade was to make it around the world in less time than the hero of Jules Verne's Around the World in Eighty Days. Over the years, her subjects veered from the fluff of the "woman's page" to genuine news, such as labor strikes and World War I. Kroeger admits that Bly wasn't much of a writer, but she was fearless and resilient and possessed an instinct for drama and an unerring sense of justice. Kudos to Kroeger for resurrecting the irrepressible Bly and adding a star to the bright firmament of nineteenth-century American women. Donna Seaman
From Kirkus Reviews
A meticulously researched, consistently entertaining biography of the legendary turn-of-the-century journalist whose true adventures far outstripped the boundaries of myth. For this first full-scale treatment of Bly, former United Press International reporter Kroeger reaches through a web of half- truths (many courtesy of the subject herself) and scanty facts to uncover the complex path of ``a life not so much lived as waged.'' Born near Pittsburgh in 1864, Elizabeth Jane Cochran began her career with an extraordinary stroke of luck--the editor of The Pittsburgh Dispatch, fascinated by her spirited letter rebuking a columnist who urged women to stay at home, gave the untrained 20- year-old a position and, in the fashion of the day, a catchy life- long pseudonym. But it was her own initiative that secured lasting fame. Deciding to scale the walls of newspaper capital New York, with her sights set on Joseph Pulitzer's splashy The World, Bly quickly became a leading investigative reporter in a business still largely closed to women. National celebrity came with an effort to better Jules Verne's fictional Phileas Fogg by going around the world in 75 days. Her relentlessly self-referential but charming and uninhibited style made Bly, in Kroeger's estimation, perhaps the first ``gonzo'' journalist. Reborn as an enlightened manufacturer after a curious elopement with a millionaire industrialist 40 years her senior, Bly mastered technology sufficiently to pick up 25 patents in her own name. Financial ruin drew the now-widowed Bly to Austria to report from the front lines of WW I, and a final foray into New York journalism, just prior to her death at 57, cast Bly as a passionate advocate for downtrodden women and children. While skillfully conveying the outlines of an astounding life, Kroeger, hampered by a lack of intimate detail, never manages to make Bly a fully three-dimensional character- -although, as she amply demonstrates, four or five dimensions would seem more appropriate. Inspiring reading for those searching out a feminist role model--or just a breathless ride through an incredible life. (16 pages of b&w photographs--not seen) -- Copyright ©1994, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
From the Inside Flap
back--the acclaimed biography of Nellie Bly, the "thrilling account of a trailblazer" (Pat Morrison, Los Angeles Times Book Review). "Kroeger's biography of Nellie Bly moves at almost as fast a pace as did Bly's remarkable life."--Mindy Spatt, San Francisco Chronicle. Photos & illustrations.
From the Trade Paperback edition.
