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In Seven Stages: A Flying Trip Around the World
Elizabeth Bisland (1861-1929) was an American author. She was an assistant editor at Cosmopolitan magazine in New York. When the newspaper's owner, John Brisben Walker, heard about Nellie Bly's trip around the world, he decided that he would make it a two-woman race. Bisland travelled west by train to San Francisco, then took a ship to the Orient. Her works In Seven A Flying Trip Around the World (1891), The Secret Being the Book of a Heretic (1906) and The Life and Letters of Lafcadio Hearn (1906).
- GenresTravelNonfiction
108 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1891
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About the author
Elizabeth Bisland
101 books2 followersElizabeth Bisland Wetmore (February 11, 1861 – January 6, 1929) was an American journalist and author, perhaps best known for her 1889–1890 race around the world against Nellie Bly, which drew worldwide attention.
Source: Wikipedia
Source: Wikipedia
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
November 10, 2021
Although Cosmopolitan columnist Bisland herself makes scant reference to it in the book, the purpose and nature of her 1889/1890 around-the-world trip was to race New York World journalist Nellie Bly, both successful in their attempts to beat the record set by the fictional Phileas Fogg in Jules Verne's Around the World in Eighty Days. Although each of their books stands alone, it's fun to read, or, as I did, listen to, both.
While both authors obviously exhibit a healthy confidence in the abilities of women to meet any challenge, they look at the world through the lens of the general American prejudices of the time concerning race and nationality. I found Bly's writing to be more lively and engaging, but Bisland, a poet, excels at descriptions of the landscapes through which she passes. There are extended accounts of the Chinese Quarter of San Francisco, Yokohama, Hong Kong, Singapore, Colombo, and Aden.
In a poetic twist, Bisland and Bly each ended their journeys through life at Woodland Cemetery in the Bronx.
While both authors obviously exhibit a healthy confidence in the abilities of women to meet any challenge, they look at the world through the lens of the general American prejudices of the time concerning race and nationality. I found Bly's writing to be more lively and engaging, but Bisland, a poet, excels at descriptions of the landscapes through which she passes. There are extended accounts of the Chinese Quarter of San Francisco, Yokohama, Hong Kong, Singapore, Colombo, and Aden.
In a poetic twist, Bisland and Bly each ended their journeys through life at Woodland Cemetery in the Bronx.
May 9, 2014
While researching the story of Nellie Bly for a work project recently I stumbled upon the story of Elisabeth Bisland, and subsequently her memoir of her travels around the world in 76 days, a challenge she reluctantly undertook at the insistence of her newspaper editor who was keen to have one of his own female journalists take on the challenge that Bly was very publicly doing, i.e. to make Jules Verne's novel Around the World in 80 Days a reality. While Bly is a much-documented, much talked about and indeed pioneering journalist of her time (her investigative journalism took her undercover in a mental institution and her report on the horrors she witnessed was incremental in changing mental health practice in USA in the late 19th century), due to Bisland arriving back in New York four days later, little is known about "the other woman". In attempt to find out more, I downloaded the ebook version of this book and think it's possibly the best £2.00 I've spent in the last year or so.
Eloquent and elegant, yet equally self-deprecating and openly humbled by her experience - one that she was honestly petrified by - following a young woman on her journey around the world, travelling solo, in the 1880s was like stepping back in time and understanding a period of history and travel that has long gone. And yet many of Bisland's observations rang true to me, recalling my own observations of the tropics, the colour of the sea and the feeling of being a million miles from home and yet very close to where you should be in life.
I urge anyone with a molecule of wanderlust in their bones to read this original and insightful account of travel in an age now long behind us.
Eloquent and elegant, yet equally self-deprecating and openly humbled by her experience - one that she was honestly petrified by - following a young woman on her journey around the world, travelling solo, in the 1880s was like stepping back in time and understanding a period of history and travel that has long gone. And yet many of Bisland's observations rang true to me, recalling my own observations of the tropics, the colour of the sea and the feeling of being a million miles from home and yet very close to where you should be in life.
I urge anyone with a molecule of wanderlust in their bones to read this original and insightful account of travel in an age now long behind us.
August 22, 2020
I don't think anyone reads this who hasn't already read Nellie Bly's narrative of her trip around the world. Whereas Bly's book is about Nellie Bly (which is fine, because she's really interesting), Elizabeth Bisland's book is about the world and her dreamy perception of it, which is interesting, too. Reading this made me want to live in 1890 and travel the world with a couple of big steamer trunks.
March 21, 2016
On exactly the same day (November 14th, 1889) that female New York journalist Nellie Bly set out to beat the fictional target set by Phileas Fogg of going around the world in 80 days, Elizabeth Bisland did the same for a rival publication.
Seemingly unaware that she was racing against anything but the clock, Elizabeth's route was the same as Nellie's, only in the opposite direction, starting out across the length of America on speed train, then onto Japan, with England the last port of call before the final journey home.
Having read Bly's book immediately beforehand, it became quickly apparent that Bisland was a completely different type of woman. The fanfare she received was not so great, yet the attention it brought her was not something she enjoyed at all.
More a poetess than an adventuress, her round the world dash is more a series of painterly impressions than breathless journalistic copy. She writes so much better than Bly, so much so that I will quote a couple of illustrative passages later.
I liked her description of San Francisco for a Yankee seeing the West for the first time: 'the whole atmosphere of the place is charged with a vigorous, disrespectful sort of youth'.
Japan she likened to fairyland, it completely and utterly entranced her. She praises their art and finds it realistic of the countries 'atmosphere of gay grotesquerie – of delicate fantasticality – its crisp and fragile fairy likeness'.
This is how she describes sunset on the Pacific Ocean:
'There are no pageants of sunsets. The burning ball, undimmed by any cloud, falls swiftly and is quenched in the ocean, and after an instant of crepuscular violet the prodigious tide of light vanishes abruptly, like some vast conflagration blown out suddenly'
Of a Buddhist temple in Ceylon she notes:
'Penetrating jasmine odors from altars heaped with stemless pink blossoms, and the Lord Buddha reclining on his elbow, drowsing in the hot semi-darkness among the stifling scents.'
Not as outgoing as Bly, there is less incident in her account, for all the superior nature of the writing. I can't imagine her drinking the boys of the pressroom under the table, but she could probably write most of them off of the front page.
It would have been better if she gave up the race and lingered in each country a little longer; she never even really mentions the clock anyway, apart from near the end when, due to some confusion, she crucially loses a few days.
It took her 76 days all told, so she still beat Mr. Fogg.
Just for one last example of her superior prose, here is what she records after awakening on the cross-country train after a blizzard of snow had fallen:
'Soft undulations, full and tender as the bosom of a sleeping mother, rose and fell far beyond the eye's reach, and melted into the sky. No tree or thicket broke the suave outlines, but where the thin silver veins of the streams slipped through the curves of the plain, slim, leafless willows hung, like glistening fringes'.
Seemingly unaware that she was racing against anything but the clock, Elizabeth's route was the same as Nellie's, only in the opposite direction, starting out across the length of America on speed train, then onto Japan, with England the last port of call before the final journey home.
Having read Bly's book immediately beforehand, it became quickly apparent that Bisland was a completely different type of woman. The fanfare she received was not so great, yet the attention it brought her was not something she enjoyed at all.
More a poetess than an adventuress, her round the world dash is more a series of painterly impressions than breathless journalistic copy. She writes so much better than Bly, so much so that I will quote a couple of illustrative passages later.
I liked her description of San Francisco for a Yankee seeing the West for the first time: 'the whole atmosphere of the place is charged with a vigorous, disrespectful sort of youth'.
Japan she likened to fairyland, it completely and utterly entranced her. She praises their art and finds it realistic of the countries 'atmosphere of gay grotesquerie – of delicate fantasticality – its crisp and fragile fairy likeness'.
This is how she describes sunset on the Pacific Ocean:
'There are no pageants of sunsets. The burning ball, undimmed by any cloud, falls swiftly and is quenched in the ocean, and after an instant of crepuscular violet the prodigious tide of light vanishes abruptly, like some vast conflagration blown out suddenly'
Of a Buddhist temple in Ceylon she notes:
'Penetrating jasmine odors from altars heaped with stemless pink blossoms, and the Lord Buddha reclining on his elbow, drowsing in the hot semi-darkness among the stifling scents.'
Not as outgoing as Bly, there is less incident in her account, for all the superior nature of the writing. I can't imagine her drinking the boys of the pressroom under the table, but she could probably write most of them off of the front page.
It would have been better if she gave up the race and lingered in each country a little longer; she never even really mentions the clock anyway, apart from near the end when, due to some confusion, she crucially loses a few days.
It took her 76 days all told, so she still beat Mr. Fogg.
Just for one last example of her superior prose, here is what she records after awakening on the cross-country train after a blizzard of snow had fallen:
'Soft undulations, full and tender as the bosom of a sleeping mother, rose and fell far beyond the eye's reach, and melted into the sky. No tree or thicket broke the suave outlines, but where the thin silver veins of the streams slipped through the curves of the plain, slim, leafless willows hung, like glistening fringes'.
July 28, 2024
La giornalista che sfidò la Bly nella corsa contro il tempo per completare il giro del mondo in meno di 80 giorni. Il suo testo è speculare a quello scritto dalla stessa Nellie Bly, nel senso letterale del termine, ovvero rovesciati… sì perchè pur trattandosi di due giornaliste con lo stesso nome, Elizabeth, dello stesso viaggio, della stessa sfida… le due si rivelano essere in realtà in contrapposizione.
Innanzi tutto la Bly era la giornalista intrepida che aveva avuto l’idea, l’aveva presentata al suo editore ed aveva pure insistito e atteso finchè non lo convinse, mentre la Bisland fu un’inviata che fino a poche ore prima della partenza non sospettava minimamente cosa la attendeva (questo non per sminuire la sua impresa, ma per contestualizzarla): Nellie Bly era la giornalista d’assalto, la Bisland non aspirava a tanto, anzi fu a disagio con la fama che il viaggio le stava procurando (molto diversamente dai bagni di folla che faceva la sua concorrente). Furono contrapposte anche geograficamente: mentre la prima procedette verso est (dall’America all’Europa e poi verso l’Asia), la seconda si muoveva verso ovest e da San Francisco sbarcò subito in Asia per attraversarla e raggiungere l’Europa: si tratta di due viaggi molto diversi, laddove il secondo catapulta drasticamente il viaggiatore in una cultura diversissima dalla propria e prima ancora di abituarsi al viaggio. Non riesco a non pensare che questo abbia influito, insieme alla minore motivazione della viaggiatrice, che nel suo resoconto definisce il proprio viaggio ‘ridicolo inseguimento’.
Non è quindi una sorpresa che da quelle due penne siano scaturiti due racconti molto diversi: se la Bly è diretta e dettagliata con un approccio più giornalistico, la Bisland è delicata e poetica e con un approccio decisamente narrativo. Anche le cose che vedono e su cui si soffermano sono diverse, nonostante i luoghi fossero gli stessi. L’unica cosa che i due racconti hanno in comune è la lotta contro il tempo e i numerosi cambi nei mezzi di trasporto.
Innanzi tutto la Bly era la giornalista intrepida che aveva avuto l’idea, l’aveva presentata al suo editore ed aveva pure insistito e atteso finchè non lo convinse, mentre la Bisland fu un’inviata che fino a poche ore prima della partenza non sospettava minimamente cosa la attendeva (questo non per sminuire la sua impresa, ma per contestualizzarla): Nellie Bly era la giornalista d’assalto, la Bisland non aspirava a tanto, anzi fu a disagio con la fama che il viaggio le stava procurando (molto diversamente dai bagni di folla che faceva la sua concorrente). Furono contrapposte anche geograficamente: mentre la prima procedette verso est (dall’America all’Europa e poi verso l’Asia), la seconda si muoveva verso ovest e da San Francisco sbarcò subito in Asia per attraversarla e raggiungere l’Europa: si tratta di due viaggi molto diversi, laddove il secondo catapulta drasticamente il viaggiatore in una cultura diversissima dalla propria e prima ancora di abituarsi al viaggio. Non riesco a non pensare che questo abbia influito, insieme alla minore motivazione della viaggiatrice, che nel suo resoconto definisce il proprio viaggio ‘ridicolo inseguimento’.
Non è quindi una sorpresa che da quelle due penne siano scaturiti due racconti molto diversi: se la Bly è diretta e dettagliata con un approccio più giornalistico, la Bisland è delicata e poetica e con un approccio decisamente narrativo. Anche le cose che vedono e su cui si soffermano sono diverse, nonostante i luoghi fossero gli stessi. L’unica cosa che i due racconti hanno in comune è la lotta contro il tempo e i numerosi cambi nei mezzi di trasporto.
August 22, 2024
Questo volume, insieme a: ''Il giro del mondo in 72 giorni'', descrive una sfida realmente accaduta da due donne in epoca vittoriana. Una di loro è Elizabeth Bisland che lavorava come redattrice al “Cosmopolitan” di New York. Se qualcuno pensa, leggendo il titolo che possa riguardare: ''Il giro del mondo in 80 giorni'', la risposta è sì, infatti un giorno, il direttore di Elisabeth le chiese di partire quella stessa sera verso l’Oriente per compiere l’impresa di un giro del mondo in meno di 80 giorni. L’idea era di Nellie Bly, giornalista d’inchiesta del “New York World” che era partita per un tour intorno al mondo con l’obiettivo di sfidare il record di Phileas Fogg, il personaggio ideato da Jules Verne.
Elizabeth Bisland partì, ma nella direzione opposta alla sua “antagonista”, ben determinata a batterla sul tempo.
Il resoconto di questa esperienza fu pubblicato in sette tappe, su “Cosmopolitan” a partire dall’aprile del 1890. In seguito fu ristampato in unico volume, ma non è mai stato proposto al lettore italiano. Questo libro permette di conoscere come si viaggiava a quell’epoca e quanto l’impresa compiuta portasse a una visione emancipata della donna. I vari paesaggi che si susseguono durante il viaggio vengono descritti in maniera sublime ed il lettore viene trasportato nel viaggio insieme alla protagonista.
Elizabeth Bisland partì, ma nella direzione opposta alla sua “antagonista”, ben determinata a batterla sul tempo.
Il resoconto di questa esperienza fu pubblicato in sette tappe, su “Cosmopolitan” a partire dall’aprile del 1890. In seguito fu ristampato in unico volume, ma non è mai stato proposto al lettore italiano. Questo libro permette di conoscere come si viaggiava a quell’epoca e quanto l’impresa compiuta portasse a una visione emancipata della donna. I vari paesaggi che si susseguono durante il viaggio vengono descritti in maniera sublime ed il lettore viene trasportato nel viaggio insieme alla protagonista.
May 10, 2019
Bisland, a reporter for Cosmopolitan, was sent on this journey by her boss to try and compete with Nelly Bly's Around the World in 80 days (or less) trip for the New York World. Bly beat Bisland, completing her trip sooner. An interesting travelogue to listen to on Librivox.
June 20, 2022
A much better written account of traveling around the world in less than 80 days than Nellie Bly's book. However, it is interesting to read both books of the same journey going in opposite directions by two very different women.
owned-and-waiting-to-be-read
December 18, 2012So after reading Nellie Bly's Around the World in Seventy-Two Days, I discovered that a rival newspaper had sent their own female reporter, Elizabeth Bisland, on the same journey, with the resulting book: In Seven Stages: A Flying Trip Around the World. (Full text found online here.)
[And I'll eventually get around to reading this.]
[And I'll eventually get around to reading this.]
November 3, 2023
Con un estilo más cuidado que su compañera Nellie Bly, Elizabeth cuenta su viaje y describe con sus bellas palabras auténticas fotografías. ¿Qué le falta para mi gusto? Las fechas. Entre una parte y otra no sé si han pasado dos días o dos semanas, y eso me ha hecho que pierda el hilo más de una vez. Aun así, leer sobre mujeres valientes siempre es genial.
March 13, 2014
Nicely written account of Bisland's whirlwind trip around the world.
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews