days and—unbeknownst to her—beating out her competitor, Elizabeth Bisland of Cosmopolitan magazine.

Though at the conclusion of her journey, on January 25, 1890, Bly was greeted at a New Jersey train station by a crowd of cheering supporters, her editor at Joseph Pulitzer's New York World initially resisted sending her. He told her that her gender would make the trip impossible. "No one but a man can do this," he told her. "Very well," she replied, "Start the man, and I'll start the same day for some other newspaper and beat him." He eventually conceded.

Bly's record of her trip is as lively as that quip. Her observations during her travels are astute and frequently humorous, though some of her characterizations will seem racist by today's standards. Her journey beganshe was completely unaware that she was in a competition. On the same day as she departed to London, Bisland left New York headed in the opposite direction, under the auspices of Cosmopolitan.

Bisland serves as a good contrast to Bly. The literary editor of Cosmopolitan, she "reveled in gracious hospitality and smart conversation, both of which were regularly on display in the literary salon that she hosted in her small apartment, where members of New York’s creative set gathered to discuss the artistic issues of the day," writes Matthew Goodman for Public Domain Review. When her editor asked her to race, she said no because she had guests coming for dinner and nothing to wear on the journey. But the real reason she refused was that she had