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36 S a l v a t i o n 2 “A Flying Trip Around The World” Elizabeth Bisland awoke in the bedroom of her apartment to the usual sound of her maid bringing a tray on which breakfast, newspapers, and mail were tidily arranged. Bisland opened the mail,“read the papers leisurely, made a calm and uneventful toilet,” and readied herself for work. At ten-thirty, she received “a hurried and mysterious request . . . that I would come as soon as possible to the office of the Cosmopolitan Magazine—of which I am one of the editors.”1 Seven hours later, Bisland, age twenty-eight, was riding a train west from New York City. She would not return to the comfort of her residence and her daily routine for seventy-six days, the time it took her to travel around the world. This most eventful journey of her life began November 14, 1889, a Thursday . An impulsive decision by Cosmopolitan editor John Brisben Walker sent his associate editor around the world in a direction opposite that of Nellie Bly of the New York World, who had begun her own global trip the same day. Bly, age twenty-five, was a reporter for the immensely successful newspaper owned by Joseph Pulitzer and hoped to return to the World’s newsroom on Park Row in under eighty days, the fictional span concocted by Jules Verne in a popular novel from the 1870s. This grand stunt was to boost circulation for the World, already the largest in the city and therefore the nation.2 Bisland was book editor of Cosmopolitan, hardly a “stunt journalist” like Bly whose reportorial work involved undercover assignments that produced sensational exposés. Bisland, therefore, was less than enthused when Walker excitedly told her his scheme.“On my arrival the editor and owner of the magazine asked if I would leave New York that evening for San Francisco and go around the world in some absurdly inadequate space of time,” Bisland remembered. “My appetite at eleven in the morning for even the most excruciatingly funny jokes may be said to actually not exist, and this one, I remember, bored me more than most.”3 Salvation 37 Walker thrived on competition. The prospect of Cosmopolitan against the NewYorkWorld! Had the newspaper sent a man on this stunt,Walker might have gone himself rather than dispatch a junior editor. But it had to be a woman. Still, the idea was foolish. Cosmopolitan was a monthly magazine, the World a daily newspaper. Bisland was traveling west and would cross the Pacific Ocean to Japan, leaving her without access to the telegraph for transmitting information back to the United States. Weeks would pass before delivery of any handwritten articles transported by steamship, then railroad. Cosmopolitan might not print a word from her until its February issue. Meanwhile, Bly would have access to the transoceanic telegraph cable from England and connections in Europe, although her articles would lag behind her actual travel. Crossing into Arabia and Persia, then sailing to India, Bly would be lost to the World for many days and eventually weeks during the final phase of her trip to Japan and across the Pacific. If all went well, either Bly or Bisland would return to New York City by late January; if Bisland beat Bly, Walker could hold March’s press run a few days to benefit Cosmopolitan. Cosmopolitan first told its readers about the Bisland versus Bly race in its January 1890 issue, six weeks into the event. The article referred only to the start of the race and Bisland’s novice status as a traveler.“She has never before been abroad,” Walker wrote.“It is, of course, understood that no important results are likely to be attained from such a trip, nor anything of scientific value demonstrated ; but, under the sprightly pen of Miss Bisland, the incidents of the journey are likely to prove of a thoroughly entertaining character.”4 Walker neglected to let readers know he wanted publicity most of all. He had owned Cosmopolitan for nearly a year by mid-November 1889. The magazine had grown impressively, adding thousands of new subscribers and some new advertisers. Cosmopolitan also had continued to lose money—$50,000 since Walker purchased it. Walker, though, instinctively reacted to the news about Bly’s quest and seized the opportunity to get free ink in newspapers around the country, despite the expense of $1,500 attached to the ploy. What newspaper editor could...

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