Ten Days A Madwoman

"A biography of Nellie Bly, the pioneering journalist whose showy but substantive stunts skyrocketed her to fame"--

Originally appearing as a series of articles in "New York World" magazine and then published as a book in 1887, "Ten Days in a Mad-House" by the journalist Nellie Bly is the shocking true account of her time spent undercover at the Woman's Lunatic Asylum on Blackwell's Island in New York. Bly posed as a madwoman and was able to convince several doctors to have her committed to the asylum in order to expose the horrible conditions the female patients there were subjected to. Bly spent ten days in the asylum before the editors of the "New York World magazine" convinced the authorities to release her. In that time, she documented shocking and inhumane conditions: poor and rotting food, patients chained to benches, chairs, and each other for hours at a time, freezing water baths, rodent infestations, and abuse at the hands of nurses and staff. After her release, Bly's chronicle of these abhorrent conditions was an instant success and led to significant legal reform, including a grand jury investigation and increased funding for government services for the mentally ill. This searing and powerful expose forever changed the public perception of the mentally ill and how they should be cared for. This edition is printed on premium acid-free paper.

DigiCat Publishing presents to you this special edition of "Ten Days in a Mad-House; or, Nellie Bly's Experience on Blackwell's Island" (Feigning Insanity in Order to Reveal Asylum Horrors. The Trying Ordeal of the New York World's Girl Correspondent) by Nellie Bly. DigiCat Publishing considers every written word to be a legacy of humankind. Every DigiCat book has been carefully reproduced for republishing in a new modern format. The books are available in print, as well as ebooks. DigiCat hopes you will treat this work with the acknowledgment and passion it deserves as a classic of world literature.

In 1887 young Nellie Bly sets out for New York and a career in journalism, determined to make her way as a serious reporter, whatever that may take. But life in the city is tougher than she imagined. Down to her last dime and desperate to prove her worth, she comes up with a dangerous plan: to fake insanity and have herself committed to the asylum that looms on Blackwell's Island. There, she will work undercover to document - and expose - the wretched conditions faced by the patients. But when the asylum door swings shut behind her, she finds herself in a place of horrors, governed by a harshness and cruelty she could never have imagined. Cold, isolated and starving, her days of terror reawaken the traumatic events of her childhood. She entered the asylum of her own free will - but will she ever get out?

"Ten Days in a Mad-House" from Elizabeth Jane Cochrane. Wrote under the pseudonym Nellie Bly (1864-1922).

'Visceral and honest' Telegraph 'Bryony Gordon is a terrific, compassionate writer' Elizabeth Day 'Bryony writes with such entertaining and brazen candour about mental illness...she really helps people tackle their own stuff. Her writing has helped me before and this will be another hit' Matt Haig THE HOTLY ANTICIPATED FOLLOW-UP TO SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER*, MAD GIRL What if our notion of what makes us happy is the very thing that's making us so sad? Ten years on from first writing about her own experiences of mental illness, Bryony Gordon still receives messages about the effect it has on people. Now perimenopausal and well into the next stage of her life, parenting an almost-adolescent, just what has that help - and that connection with other unwell people - taught Bryony about herself, and the society we live in? What has she learned, and why have her views on mental health changed so radically? After coming out the other side of the biggest trauma of our living memory - a global pandemic - existing in a state of perma-crisis has now become our new normal. From burnout and binge eating, to living with fluctuating hormones and the endless battle to stay sober, Bryony begins to question whether she got mental illness wrong in the first place. Is it simply a chemical imbalance, or rather a normal response from your brain telling you that something isn't right? Mad Woman explores the most difficult of all the lessons she's learned over the last decade - that our notion of what makes a happy life is the very thing that's making us so sad. Bestselling author Bryony Gordon is unafraid to write with her trademark blend of compassion, honesty and humour about her personal challenges and demons, which means her books and journalism have had profound impact on readers. She founded the mental health charity, Mental Health Mates, which has become a vast online community. *Bryony Gordon's Mad Girl was a number one Sunday Times bestseller on 12th June 2016.

Two stories in one novel. The first is the strange, true tale of the Fox Sisters, the enigmatic family of young women who, in upstate New York in 1848, proclaimed that they could converse with the dead. Doing so, they unwittingly gave birth to a religious movement that touched two continents: the American Spiritualists. The second story is about loss and grief, a tale of the bright promise that the Fox Sisters offer up to the skeptical Clara Gill, a reclusive woman of a certain age who long ago isolated herself with her paintings, following the scandalous loss of her beautiful young lover in London.

A single woman quests the meaning of life in an exciting adventure that takes us on journeys throughout jungles in the Caribbean, the Andes Mountains and the varied terrains of Mexico. In seeking the path of the warrior and empowerment along the lines of the traditional shaman she faces adversity in walking the path of a healer and embraces lessons taught from many forms. An in-depth questioning and probing of the pain in being human that can brings us all to the edge of the precipice