Madwoman: Nellie Bly

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In this compelling tribute to a fearless young reporter of Victorian New York, Treger brings to vivid life the way one woman's broken past gives her the strength to expose the many horrors faced by others left to rot in an asylum. Nellie made friends with two women who were sane like herself but watched in horror as their psychological and physical conditions deteriorated. She has been my hero ever since but I have not really read much more about her apart from that bookish fact.

And I saw this book while I was at my office, so I decided to give it a go because her story did seem both interesting and admirable. Feeling she has gone insane herself, Nellie really starts to question her assignment and agreement to do this. I needed to know what kind of woman would willingly get herself committed to an asylum in the nineteenth century and just what did she experience while there?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. My thanks to Bloomsbury Publishing for an early copy of this book and the ability to post my thoughts without any stipulations.

D. in English at University College London, where she focused on early-twentieth-century women's writing and was awarded the West Scholarship and the Rosa Morison Scholarship "for distinguished work in the study of English Language and Literature". Women are meant to get married and have children and, if for some reason or other they really have to go out to work, then there are underpaid jobs in housekeeping or factories. I’ve read other books about Nellie Bly’s life, but this is the first I’ve read that delve deeply into the time she spent in the asylum, a place she goes of her own accord to experience first hand what was happening inside those institutions and expose the atrocities.There are hints of scandal in an institution - the asylum on "Blackwell's Island" in New York - and an intrepid investigative journalist sets out to penetrate the establishment and expose the truth. An education via her father, who’s a judge, and stories fuelling her imagination by way of her mother. One quickly realises how high the stakes were for Nellie and how ingrained the ill-treatment of inmates was. She learned that not all women in this place were mentally ill but were imprisoned there because their husbands or male relatives wanted to be rid of them or they had broken some restrictions of society. So I loved the book it made me sad but it also gave me hope in that people like Nellie are still around today and are as caring as she was, please read the book it really is worth it.