Description from Booklist:

The lives of women in the 1890s were constrained by social mores, family obligations, and restrictive clothing. Annie Kopchovsky, immigrant, wife, and mother of three, seems to have had no qualms about doing the opposite of what the times dictated. So liberated was Annie that she cooked up a scheme to circle the globe on a bicycle—even though she had barely been on a bike—to earn fame and money. She abandoned her husband and children and made up a traveling identity, calling herself Annie Londonderry. Her journey began in New York, where she worked for a bicycle company, but in Chicago she negotiated a new contract with a different bicycle company and started over. She did succeed in circling the globe with a fair share of hype and flimflammery, but did she fulfill the terms of the contract? Well researched and written by a great-nephew of Annie's, this reclaimed true story illuminates family life, journalism, advertising, and recreation of that transitional era. As for Annie, she was a remarkable woman and well worth getting to know.