Charity Girl: Nellie Bly, #2

By David Blixt

A gripping sequel to the bestselling novel What Girls Are Good For, following the real-life reporting of undercover journalist Nellie Bly!

 

Step into the electric streets of 1880s New York as trailblazing journalist Nellie Bly delves into the heart of the city's underbelly, where the cries of abandoned infants echo through the cobblestone alleys, as she discovers the fate of unwanted babies.

 

Fresh from her harrowing escape from the madhouse on Blackwell's Island, undercover reporter Nellie Bly receives a letter that launches her next crusading investigation—what becomes of unwanted children? As Bly fearlessly navigates the dangerous labyrinth of 1880s New York, her unyielding pursuit of justice sheds light on the plight of the city's most vulnerable. Discovering the wide range of reasons children are abandoned, even Bly's characteristic pluck fails her as she chases down the doctors who buy and sell babies!

 

With meticulous research and vivid prose, David Blixt transports readers to an era defined by social upheaval and journalistic tenacity. "Charity Girl" is a powerful testament to the resilience of the human spirit and the transformative impact of one woman's unwavering dedication to exposing the harsh realities of a bygone era.

Praise for What Girls Are Good For:

★★★★★ - "David Blixt pens a heroine for the ages in "What Girls Are Good For," which follows the extraordinary career of pioneer newspaperwoman Nellie Bly. A pint-sized dynamo who refuses to stay in the kitchen, Nellie fights tooth and nail to make a name for herself as a journalist, battling complacent men, corrupt institutions, and her own demons along the way. This real-life Lois Lane had me cheering aloud as I turned the pages - simply a delight!" - Kate Quinn, author of The Alice Network

• Language: English
• Publisher: Sordelet Ink
• Release date: Feb 27, 2020
• ISBN: 9781944540449

David Blixt

David Blixt's work is consistently described as "intricate," "taut," and "breathtaking." A writer of historical fiction, his novels span the Roman Empire (the COLOSSUS series, his play EVE OF IDES) to early Renaissance Italy (the STAR-CROSS'D series) through the Elizabethan era (his delightful espionage comedy HER MAJESTY'S WILL, starring Will Shakespeare and Kit Marlowe as hapless spies), to 19th Century feminism (WHAT GIRLS ARE GOOD FOR, his novel of reporter Nellie Bly). During his research, David discovered eleven novels by Bly herself that had been lost for over a century. David's stories combine a love of theatre with a deep respect for the quirks and passions of history. As the Historical Novel Society said, "Be prepared to burn the midnight oil. It's well worth it."Living in Chicago with his wife and two children, David describes himself as an "author, actor, father, husband-in reverse order."

Book preview

Charity Girl

a NELLIE BLY novelette

by

DAVID BLIXT

edited by

ROBERT KAUZLARIC

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, events, and organizations portrayed in this work are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously.

Charity Girl

Copyright © 2020 by David Blixt

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form by any electronic or mechanical means including photocopying, recording, or information storage and retrieval without permission in writing from the author.

ISBN: 978-1-944540-44-9

Published by Sordelet Ink

www.sordeletink.com

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An Amazing Discovery!

While researching these works of historical fiction, author David Blixt found eleven novels written by Nellie Bly herself. These novels, published serially from 1889 to 1895 in the pages of a weekly paper, were thought lost to time—until now!

Setting aside his own writing, Blixt spent two years transcribing and preparing them for publication. (He is now doing the same for all of Nellie Bly’s articles for The New York World.)

The Lost Novels Of Nellie Bly are available now!

The Lost Novels Of Nellie Bly

The Mystery of Central Park

Eva the Adventuress

New York By Night

Alta Lynn, m.d.

Wayne’s Faithful Sweetheart

Little Luckie, or Playing For Hearts

In Love With a Stranger

The Love of Three Girls

Little Penny, Child of the Streets

Pretty Merribelle

Twins and Rivals

Nellie Bly’s World

Vol. 1 - 1887-1888

Vol. 2 - 1889-1890

Into The Madhouse

The Complete Reporting Surrounding Nellie Bly's Exposé of the Blackwell's Island Insane Asylum

David Blixt’s Nellie Bly Novels

What Girls Are Good For

Charity Girl

Clever Girl

Author’s Note

The events of this novelette take place immediately following my novel What Girls Are Good For, in which Elizabeth Pink Cochrane becomes a reporter. Taking the pen name Nellie Bly, she writes stories focusing on the poor, the dispossessed, the cheated and swindled. Most especially, her stories focus on working women.

After three years of writing for the Pittsburg Dispatch, she moves to New York City and goes undercover at the insane asylum on Blackwell’s Island to expose the mistreatment of the women held there. Her story is published in the pages of Joseph Pulitzer’s New York World, and makes her a star. This is what happened next . . .

Click here to sign up for another free novelette, as well as news about future Nellie Bly stories and my other novels, or else visit www.davidblixt.com.

I hope you enjoy this story, based on Nellie Bly’s real-life reporting.

— David Blixt

Chicago, 2020

Dear Sister,

I have an unfortunate girl in my parish who has given birth to an illegitimate child. She is so circumstanced that if it were known it would greatly injure her and at the same time give rise to a great deal of scandal among her friends. She is truly repentant and has brought the child to me to be baptized. (Its name is Louis.)

I therefore request of you the favor to receive the child in the asylum and free her from the burden which she has been so unfortunate to bring upon herself.

Greatly obliged.

Yours respectfully

REV. L. A. Mazziatta

Police Department of the City of New York,

Precinct No. 20

Charity Girl

Part One

Saturday, October 29, 1887

I’m going to be a published author!

I said this aloud to my empty apartment, so there was no one to hear my exciting news. I had just signed the lease, and had barely a stick of furniture. That didn’t trouble me—eager as I was to outfit my new home in New York City, I didn’t want to buy anything that was less than perfect. Having pinched pennies since the age of six, I knew better than to play the drunk when flush. You never know when disaster will strike.

In fact, disaster had struck almost exactly a month earlier. On the twenty-second of September my bag had been stolen, containing nearly one hundred dollars, all the money I had in the world. I couldn’t even afford to pay the rent on my shabby little furnished room uptown.

However, the experience made me realize something about myself: crisis brought out the best in me. When pushed to the brink, I could be devilishly resourceful. That night I borrowed enough money to take me downtown to Newspaper Row and marched into the offices of Joseph Pulitzer’s New York World and pitched them a story.

They didn’t buy it.

Yet Pulitzer’s prize editor, Colonel Cockerill, was impressed by my pluck and gumption, and he suggested a different story: getting myself incarcerated in the Woman’s Lunatic Asylum on Blackwell’s Island to expose the goings-on there. At the time, I had no idea it was a repeat of a stunt performed a decade earlier by a man. All I knew was that it was a chance to prove myself—while also peeling back the curtain on misdeeds against women. So I played shatterpated and got myself committed.

I’d emerged three weeks ago—Was it only three weeks?—with a story that had made my moniker a household name. Well, not my actual moniker. No one knew who Elizabeth Cochrane was. But everyone knew the name Nellie Bly.

Which was how I ended up with the letter in my hand. It was from the publisher Norman L. Munro, offering me more money than I could have hitherto imagined for the rights to publish my story from the madhouse: a whopping five hundred dollars! Considering that I had started off at five dollars a week, and had made only twenty-five dollars for the madhouse exposé, it was a small fortune.

Hence my new, if empty, apartment on West Seventy-Fourth Street. Compared to the furnished room I’d occupied all summer, it was a palace: six large rooms with a private hall, a bathroom with a tub, and a kitchen with a range. There was a common freight elevator in the building for groceries, and a janitor’s service was included. The rooms were outfitted with gas chandeliers, steam heat, and fairly decent woodwork. I even liked the wallpaper. All for twenty-two dollars a month—a steal.

And I wouldn’t be alone for long. Even before the book deal, I had sent to Pittsburgh and asked—well, told—my mother to sell her house and come live with me. I did it partly out of duty, partly as repayment for all the trouble I’d caused her over the years, and partly because we had been good companions during my months reporting in Mexico.

There was another, less worthy reason as well: I wanted to show up my brothers.

Of my four siblings, the oldest two were both married and employed. But Charlie had remained at Mother’s house even after his wife had produced a bundle of joy. And Albert, the eldest of us all—and Mother’s favorite—now lived in a fine house in Pittsburgh of his own, yet he hadn’t invited our twice-widowed, once-divorced mother to live with him. No, I had done that. In New York, no less. Me, the troublemaker.