History is often captured and depicted on game boards. It’s said that if you gathered games published throughout the years from a country, they would offer an insightful picture of the historical times and culture for that country. 

The Around the World with Nellie Bly Board Game is one of these games which would offer a glimpse into the historical times of the late 1800’s.  Milton Bradley published this game after Nellie Bly broke the record for traveling around the world, in not 80 days like the fictional character, Phileas Fogg, of the Jules Verne 1873 novel had traveled, but in 72 days!

The game board features her start of the journey in New York to where she travels by Steamship across the ocean to London.  From there she traveled to France (with a stop to visit Jules Verne), to Italy, and around the world for the full 24, 899 mile journey. The cover of the Milton Bradley game shows Nellie quite dressed up, but at the onset of her travels, shown on the game board itself, she is wearing her long overcoat and holding a small travel bag with only a few essentials. She traveled light.

Unknown to Nellie, until arriving in Hong Kong, another lady had also taken up the challenge and considered this journey around the world a race. Nellie, however, felt no such thing, and is known to have disregarded her competition.  The challenge was her own, to which she did achieve, and broke the record.

Many cheered Nellie on, and there was much excitement for a side game at the time called; ‘Nellie Bly Guessing Match’. This match was put on by The World newspaper which Nellie wrote for. Readers were to guess the second she would arrive in New York/New Jersey. The closest guess would win a trip to Europe.  Nellie arrived back on January 25, 1890 at 3:51 PM.  She had traveled the world in 72 days.

The board game mimicking this adventure is a simple race style game. Players spin the spinner and move accordingly.  Certain spaces provide various instructions for the players to follow. Some of which are:

Rain: Go Back 1 Day (space)….

Break in Machinery: Go Back 3 days

Or

Christmas: 1 more throw.

Nellie’s journey did include traveling through the holiday season.

The winner of the game is the first to arrive at the central space of the ‘Round the World’ journey.  Players had to reach this by exact spin.

Collecting games is a wonderful adventure of collecting snapshots of history.  Placing this game on my shelf provided another glimpse into times gone by.  Back then it was a time of Ships and Rails. Now it’s Planes and Automobiles.  Times have changed.

But not for taking time out to play a game!  Play a game today!  Enjoy!

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