Having paved the way for mental health facilities around the country, Nellie was a trailblazer in creating a new type of journalist, an undercover.

An extraordinary portrait of a woman ahead of her time, Madwoman is the story of a quest for the truth that changed the world. Incredibly she manages to convince sufficient people that sheis suffering from mental illness to getcommitted to the asylum. By this time in the novel I was championing Nelly so strongly, I almost had a placard in my hands and felt like standing on a box in the middle of Roosevelt island to tell the world what she was doing and why. Since my college journalism days I’ve been fascinated by the role of women in investigative journalism, including Ida Tarbell and Nellie Bly.The setting of the asylum will haunt me for some time to come and it was so vivid and fascinating that I had chills down my spine as she uncovered layers of wrongdoing, claustrophobia, ill treatment and so much worse. Imagine pretending to be insane and so you get committed to such a place, only then have to act ‘ mad’ so you can go undercover in plain sight and reveal the truth about this place and others like it? The third person viewpoint removes the reader from events, I wanted to walk with Nellie, not observing her as a reporter might. We're reminded that, in piecing together Bly's history, Treger's first resource will have been her printed articles: this is a woman who found her voice and her freedom through a modern medium, the crusading newspaper, one of the first to do so. It is the story of Nellie Bly who has a difficultchildhood after her beloved father dies leaving his second wife Nellie's mother bereft and almost penniless.

A HISTORICAL FICTION BOOK OF THE YEAR IN THE TIMES AND THE SUNDAY TIMES**___________________________'A moving story' SUNDAY TIMES, Best historical fiction books of 2022'A must read! And the subtext regarding women's lack of autonomy is sledgehammered home with a complete lack of artistry. About the book: “Based on a true story, a spellbinding historical novel about the world's first female investigative journalist, Nellie Bly. Treger shows the same care for the stories of these silenced women that Bly did all those years ago. I fairly leapt at the chance to read Louise Treger’s fictionalised narrative of Elizabeth Cochran who wrote under the pseudonym of Nellie Bly, having always been fascinated by her remarkable story.The articles are popular but attract controversy from advertisers, and when she is relegated to writing about the arts, Nellie decides to move to New York. 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. Would Nellie have bathed and washed her hair the night before she began her quest to be declared a lunatic? She has been my hero ever since but I have not really read much more about her apart from that bookish fact.

Louisa subsequently turned to literature, gaining a First Class degree and a PhD in English at University College London, where she focused on early twentieth century women’s writing.

In 1887 young Nellie Bly sets out for life anew to make a name for herself by becoming a journalist, determined to leave her old life behind and create a future she can be proud of and New York is where it will happen. Though I’m quite familiar with Nellie’s stint on Blackwell’s Island, much of Nellie’s past was unknown to me, so I appreciated learning more about her family life and what led her to her career in journalism during a period when women were actively dissuaded from higher education and white collar work. Her dream of a career in law lies in tatters, her mother’s second marriage is a disaster but all these experiences will shape her character and her future. If the shocking world of the asylum will stay with me for a long time, so will the inspiration of Nellie's self-sacrifice and her determination to tell her story. Abusive and vicious staff, scant and poor food, freezing conditions and hideous punishments rapidly take their dehumanising toll - and even worse is threatened.