A closer look at the people who became the biggest names in adventure
STORY BY TOM CLYNES
Time reduces the flesh and blood of pioneers to a character trait or two, an anecdote, a quip. George Mallory, he’s the one said, “Because it’s there,” right? Ernest Shackleton, the Endurance, stuck in the ice, no one died. Hillary: first up Everest. Wasn’t he from Australia? Or was it New Zealand?
These men and women were just human beings, at times awkward, scrawny, scruffy, indecisive, insecure. Their bold and heroic actions are what we remember, but the details of their lives—ironic, tragic, or just mundane—are what make them real to us.
Photo by Bettmann/CORBIS
Nellie Bly
In November of 1889, at a time when travel was just emerging from the horse and buggy days, a crusading American journalist named Nellie Bly set off alone on a steamship in an attempt to beat Jules Verne’s fictional hero Phileas Fogg’s 80-day trip around the world. Seventy-two days, six hours, and 11 minutes later, she returned to the New Jersey wharf where
2,900 words to go
You’re just getting to the good part.
This story — and 41 issues of them — opens with a subscription.
Stories like this, in your hands four times a year.
41 issues. 10 years. Independently owned. Printed on 70lb uncoated paper with a soft-touch cover, solar-powered, and shipped in a brown paper envelope. Free domestic shipping.
