Nellie Bly is the pen-name of Elizabeth Cochrane, an American journalist born in Pennsylvania in 1864. She was a trailblazer for women seeking work in the burgeoning newspaper industry in the 19th century but what trials she had to go through to make that happen! She’s also known for traveling solo around the world in under 80 days.
Although The Girl Puzzle focuses on Nellie’s famous Ten Days in the Madhouse, the novel has a dual timeline so that readers learn more about her life which was pretty full and not always happy. Here she is photographed in 1890 and 1921, looking much as she would have done in the times I’ve written about in my novel:
A great way to get a sense of what a character Nellie was (aside from reading The Girl Puzzle of course!) is to discover her through her own words and actions.
Check out my blog posts:
5 Lesser Known Facts about Nellie Bly
Another 5 Lesser Known Facts about Nellie Bly
And once you’ve read The Girl Puzzle and want to get to know her even better, you can’t go wrong with either of these wonderful non-fiction titles:
Kate Braithwaite 