Around the World in Seventy-Two Days (Summarized Edition)

Around the World in Seventy-Two Days chronicles Nellie Bly's 1889–90 circumnavigation, conceived as a real-life answer to Jules Verne's fiction. Writing in brisk, first-person reportage, Bly knits together ports and timetables—London, Brindisi, Suez, Colombo, Hong Kong, Yokohama, San Francisco—through the era's steamships, railways, and telegraph. She interviews Verne in Amiens, notes imperial infrastructures and cultural encounters, and dwells on the logistics of traveling with a single gripsack and one dress. The book belongs to late nineteenth-century New Journalism and travel writing, melding speed, spectacle, and empirical observation for a mass readership. Bly (born Elizabeth Cochrane Seaman) was a pathbreaking reporter for Joseph Pulitzer's New York World, famous for Ten Days in a Mad-House and other investigative stunt pieces. Her record-setting voyage—shadowed by rival Elizabeth Bisland—was at once a circulation gambit and a feminist wager, proving a woman could traverse the globe unchaperoned, manage money, and master schedules within the industrial networks of modernity. Readers of travel literature, journalism history, and gender studies will find this a propulsive primary source: a narrative of motion that also reveals the infrastructures and prejudices of its moment. For its pace, candor, and cultural insight, Bly's classic remains indispensable—and unexpectedly contemporary. Quickie Classics summarizes timeless works with precision, preserving the author's voice and keeping the prose clear, fast, and readable—distilled, never diluted. Enriched Edition extras: Introduction · Synopsis · Historical Context · Author Biography · Brief Analysis · 4 Reflection Q&As · Editorial Footnotes.