Around the World with Nelly Bly (1890)

We stopped at the Huntington Library up in Pasadena on Monday and saw they were running an exhibit called "Mapping Fiction".  It was primarily about how maps are used by story tellers and travel writers, with maps on display of both real and imaginary places.  Oddly, they had a copy of the board game "Around the World with Nelly Bly" from about 1893.

I only knew of this game from a screenshot I found online last year, where it appeared in black and white as a full-page spread in one of the British daily papers at the time.

Most board games of this period were the "Game of the Goose" variety, just roll and move on a spiral toward the center with 70 to 90 spaces.  This is no different, it just takes an interesting historical theme.  One thing to note is that the tiny rules on the bottom say that if you land on a space that tells you to move to another space, you should ignore any rules printed on that new space.  Otherwise, it looks like you could bounce all over.  It's a bit dense with moving forward or backward a few spaces.

The printed edition at the museum looked like it was on thick cardboard, and the color scheme was all faded browns and greenish spaces, but we were not allowed to take photographs.  The descriptive card explained that her around-the-world flight was a publicity response to the recent release of Jules Verne's classic "Around the World in 80 Days."  I guess people wanted to know if that was really possible...

The exhibit brochure can be found here in PDF form, but since the exhibit ends May 30, 2022, I suppose it will vanish soon.  Here is a small image of the game:

I would have liked to look at it in more detail but we were both feeling pretty worn out at the time, since it was day five of a long trip. Thanks to the Huntington for putting together such an interesting exhibit.

Nellie Bly was not just a pilot out on a daring journey, she was a groundbreaking journalist with a fascinating story.  Check out the Wikipedia page for a glimpse, and a lot of hooks to follow her story.  The Library of Congress even has a page dedicated to researching her life, and wouldn't you know it, that's where I got that first image of the black and white version of the game.  I marked the file with "LoC" so I wouldn't forget, but I forgot anyway, and just now I went to find a proper citation but got technical difficulties instead.  Will update this when I can...



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