Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Why the 1/2-star rating for this timeless and influential classic by one of 19th-c. America's most important journalists? 5 stars for this classic text -- which I've loved since I first read it in the 9th grade, as one of the texts required by my American History teacher. (Now a history teacher myself, I often share it with my students, who uniformly love it.) 1/2 star for the fact that this edition of the book is a 'legal bootleg'. That is, an unnamed, mystery 'editor' has taken a book that has slipped into the public domain because the author died before 1927 (Bly died in 1922 and thus just missed the 1927 copyright cut-off); re-packaged it as an 'edited' and 'revised' edition (why isn't the editor named? why aren't the 'revisions and updates' annotated within the text, per the standard for edited histories?); and re-published it under the 'Create Space' imprimatur to enrich himself/herself without sharing a dime with Bly's estate or original publisher. (Ian L. Munro's publishing house produced the book in 1887.) This is so uncool to me as a historian, history teacher, and Nellie Bly super-fan that I have no problem undercutting the profits of the aforementioned 'legal bootlegger' by sharing the following information with anyone who is interested: (1) You can save your dough and read an estate-sanctioned, totally free, e-Book version of Bly's _Ten Days in a Madhouse_ at the University of Pennsylvania's Digital Library website. Cut and paste the last 14 words of the previous sentence into your favorite search engine (I use the one that rhymes with Droogle or the one that rhymes with Tuck Tuck Moe) and the website will show up as one of the top search results. (2) Alternatively, if you'd like to listen to an estate-sanctioned, audio book version of Bly's work, then swap out the reference to the University of Pennsylvania's Digital Library and add the words "Internet Archive." The non-profit Internet Archive's really cool audio book version will pop up as one of your top search results. (Still more awesome, the Internet Archive offers the option of either listening online or downloading in any one of several different formats so you can listen via your device while on the go.) As the quintessential Progressive Era "Muckraker" -- which you'll recall from high school was the late-19th- and early-20th-c. term for the cadre of reform-minded investigative journalists that Bly exemplified -- Bly's track record indicates that if she were looking down from Journalist Heaven, she wouldn't object if you passed up a 'legal bootleg' of her work and instead checked out one of the aforementioned, free, estate-sanctioned, non-profit-archive-hosted versions. Indeed, I daresay that the brave, talented, fair-minded Bly would stand up and cheer. Just my $00.02; YMMV.