Ten Days a Madwoman ─ The Daring Life and Turbulent Times of the Original "Girl" Reporter, Nellie Bly

Only a truly dedicated journalist would admit herself to an asylum.

Young Nellie Bly had ambitious goals, especially for a woman at the end of the nineteenth century, when the few female journalists were relegated to writing columns about cleaning or fashion. But fresh off a train from Pittsburgh, Nellie knew she was destined for more and pulled a major journalistic stunt that skyrocketed her to fame: feigning insanity, being committed to the notorious asylum on Blackwell's Island, and writing a shocking exposé of the clinic’s horrific treatment of its patients.

Nellie Bly became a household name and raised awareness of political corruption, poverty, and abuses of human rights. Leading an uncommonly full life, Nellie circled the globe in a record seventy-two days and brought home a pet monkey before marrying an aged millionaire and running his company after his death.

Deborah Noyes is the author of nonfiction and fiction for young readers and adults, including Encyclopedia of the End: Mysterious Death in Fact, Fancy, Folklore, and More, One Kingdom: Our Lives with Animals,?and The Ghosts of Kerfol. She has also compiled and edited the short story anthologies?Gothic!, The Restless Dead, and Sideshow. She would like to slide down banisters for a living, but writing is the next best thing.