A Woman's Circumnavigation
A Flying Trip Around the World in Seven Stages
Publication: New York: Harper & Brothers, 1891. First Edition.
Notes: An uncommon memoir of a trip around the world inspired by Jules Verne's Around the World in Eighty Days. Bisland completed her trip in 76 days.
The author (1861–1929) was a journalist working for Cosmopolitan magazine. She was sent on a trip around the world to compete with Nellie Bly, who was attempting the same feat. Bly won, in 72 days, which has eclipsed Bisland's still-remarkable achievement and her interesting, rather overwritten, mildly racist, and little-known account of it. She understood the stakes, "I was a young woman, quite alone, and doing a somewhat conspicuous and eccentric thing." Unlike Bly and Verne's Phileas Fogg who set off toward the east, Bisland left New York and headed west. Bly became the first American woman to complete a circumnavigation, arriving back in New York on January 25, 1890; Bisland finished hers on January 30.
[iv], 205, [1:blank], [2:publisher ads] pages with an inserted frontispiece portrait of the author and a printed tissue guard. 4-3/4 by 6-7/8 inches. Bound in light green and white bookcloth with a hand-lettered title stamped in red and the rigging of a ship stamped in gilt.
Edition + Condition: First edition. A near fine copy, very slightly tanned at the spine. A lovely copy.
Item No: #366068
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