“Eighty Days: Nellie Bly and Elizabeth Bisland’s History-Making Race Around the World”, by Matthew Goodman

496 pages, Ballantine Books, ISBN-13: 978-0345527271

Who in the hell were Nellie Bly and Elizabeth Bisland, I hear you ask? I knew you were asking that, Dear Reader, ‘cause that’s what I asked myself when I picked up Eighty Days: Nellie Bly and Elizabeth Bisland’s History-Making Race Around the World by Matthew Goodman at 2^nd & Charles. So I’ll tell you: Nellie Bly was the pen-name of Elizabeth Cochrane Seaman, an American (female) journalist who began her career with the Pittsburgh Dispatch before moving on to the New York World and who was a pioneer in her field by launching a new kind of investigative journalism, as when she went undercover to report on a mental institution from within; Elizabeth Bisland Wetmore was also an American (female) journalist and author who began her writing career as a teenager by sending poetry to the New Orleans Times Democrat where she soon went to work for the paper before moving to New York City and writing for The Sun and New York World, as well as become an editor at Cosmopolitan and contributing to the Atlantic Monthly and the North American Review. So now you know.

What Eighty Days is about is these two women’s race around the world in late 1888 and early 1889, à la Jules Verne’s Phileas Fogg from Around the World in Eighty Days. It began when Bly approached John Cockerill, the editor of the New York World, about besting the fictional Fogg by accomplishing in fact what Fogg did in fiction. While at first Cockerill refused the request, about a year later he and his boss, Joseph Pulitzer, decided that such a deed accomplished by a plucky Yankee girl would be a grand piece of publicity for the paper, and so a year after she first suggested it, Nellie Bly boarded the Hamburg America steamer Augusta Victoria at 9:40 a.m. on November 14, 1889 (with a mere two days' notice) and began her historic 25,000 mile journey…meanwhile, John Brisben Walker, who had just purchased the three-year-old and still-fledgling Cosmopolitan, decided to dispatch Bisland on her own journey around the world and, a mere six hours after being recruited, Bisland departed from New York, only she traveled west by train in contrast to Bly traveling East by boat. It would prove to be a story for the ages.

I won’t spoil the conclusion for you, but I will say that Eighty Days was part adventure story and part travelogue as Goodman described the long-lost world of the Pax Britannica, in which the mighty British Empire made the world safe for travel by these two American gals. The story is fascinating and is written in such an engaging manner and at such a fast clip as to remain entertaining throughout, without the dry spells I often seem to hit somewhere near the middle. At the same time, it is packed with insight and information about the two travelers and their world and culture; while some of these stories felt like filler, I enjoyed them all the same and thought they added to the over-all tale, even if they were tangential to the same. I came away from Eighty Days feeling very well informed, not only about Bly and Bisland’s daring travels, but about things such as the origin of modern time zones, the conditions of coal stokers on those great Victorian steamships and the struggle of female journalists to make it off society pages and into real reporting. My biggest complaint is that I fell that the book seemed biased towards Bly, but I thank Goodman for bringing to light this little-known story of Yankee feminine daring-do.

“England’s Thousand Best Houses”, by Simon Jenkins

992 pages, Studio, ISBN-13: 978-0670033027

As with Simon Jenkins’ England’s Thousand Best Churches, which I reviewed on September 21^st, 2019, England’s Thousand Best Houses is as good as its title. As befits the Chairman of the National Trust, Jenkins’ list includes many National Trust castles, manor houses and grand palaces of the rich and well-born, as well as several you may not have heard of (I certainly hadn’t). From the Victorian villa in Bedford (Pg. 3) to the Jacobean house in Wakefield on (Pg. 1020), this cultural companion bears out on every erudite page the author’s contention that the domestic architecture of England is “a treasure trove, a glory of humanity”. The book is a travelogue coffee table guide rather than a useful reference guide to the serious student or researcher. It is incredibly heavy, so a comfortable bedtime read it ain’t – and it’s probably too hefty to refer to in the car, so I doubt you’d want to lug it around during a visit.

From cottages to colleges, palaces to terraces, Jenkins’s county-by-county gazetteer gives each entry a star rating and a stylish essay as he mixes sound history and criticism with the sort of personal flourish (for instance, his swipes at the “dead hand” of modern custodianship). For all that the author’s word pictures are wonderful, and he has quite a sense of humor, so it’s fun to read…which is a good thing, as one YUGE drawback is the dearth of actual photographs, a drawback seeing as this is a work that celebrates such a visual thing as a HOUSE. This pictorial abyss is particularly galling when he’s talking about specific architectural features and you have to Google the damn thing in order to learn just what in hell he’s talking ‘bout. Oh, there’s a glossary for some of these, but pictures would be better for those of us who are not as informed about these things as we should be.

“Germany: A New History”, by Hagen Schulze, translated by Deborah Lucas Schneider

368 pages, Harvard University Press, ISBN-13: 978-0674806887

Germany: A New History by Hagen Schulze (translated by Deborah Lucas Schneider) is by no means a bad book; it is well-written, even-handed and concise…oh, brother is it concise. Need an example? Okay: the First World War, in which Germany was utterly shattered, humiliated and made prey for the darkest impulses of its most infuriated citizens is covered in exactly…fourteen paragraphs. You read that right: fourteen paragraphs, or about two and a half pages, including all of the pretty pictures. Germany’s long, rich and fascinating history prior to 1400 is glossed over so lightly that it doesn’t even serve as an adequate prologue (in fact, if this book were your only historical resource, you could be forgiven for believing that Germania didn’t even exist before the Romans came along and started mucking about).

As you should have gleaned from this description, Schulze provides only an overview of Germany’s vast history, which is good if you only want to learn general concepts and events. Don’t let the fact that it is over 300 pages long fool you, either; the typeface is quite large and the lines are double-spaced. This may be exactly what readers are looking for, but I found the vague references to certain historical figures by surname only annoying, because Schulze is assuming the reader knows who in the hell he is talking about. I suppose it is only to be expected of a book that spends a few paragraphs on the Reformation and Counterreformation. I’m not saying it isn’t a good read (in fact, the narrative flows quite nicely), but it is obviously a book dedicated to advertising Schulze’s perspective on certain people and events in German history, for what Schulze wants to convey is his interpretation of the events, their consequences and lasting effects on the German people. Thus, if it is an easy-to-read, one-volume overview of German history from the Renaissance to modern times that you seek, this is your book; if you already know something of German history, you’ll be able to follow the story more-or-less ably. If not…then brother, buy another book.