Campaigns of Curiosity
Elizabeth L. Banks
Nov 2025 · Penguin Random House Audio · Narrated by Jennifer Rubins
headphones
Audiobook
6 hr 18 min
Unabridged
family_home
Eligible
info
Want a free 9 min sample? Listen anytime, even offline.
Add
About this audiobook
Celebrating a decade of Columbia Global Reports, the Forerunners series revives groundbreaking works of investigative journalism and incisive analysis published a century before CGR’s founding. These texts, once forgotten or underexplored, reflect CGR’s core mission: fearless reporting, global perspective, and intellectual rigor. Each selection remains strikingly relevant today, offering historical insights that challenge contemporary perspectives and reaffirm the power of journalism to shape the world.
Campaigns of Curiosity chronicles American journalist Elizabeth Banks’s bold entry into London’s rigid class system at the height of the Victorian era. Determined to make her name, Banks went undercover as a housemaid, laundress, flower girl, and heiress, bringing sharp wit and keen observation to her exposés of working-class life and the role of women in British society.
First published in 1894, Campaigns of Curiosity marks a pivotal moment in the rise of investigative journalism, a form pioneered and shaped by women using ingenuity and audacity to break new ground. Following Nellie Bly’s trail, Banks showed that “stunt” reporting could achieve both literary merit and lasting social insight.
With a new introduction by longtime correspondent Brooke Kroeger, this edition restores a forgotten pioneer to her rightful place in journalism’s history.
Campaigns of Curiosity chronicles American journalist Elizabeth Banks’s bold entry into London’s rigid class system at the height of the Victorian era. Determined to make her name, Banks went undercover as a housemaid, laundress, flower girl, and heiress, bringing sharp wit and keen observation to her exposés of working-class life and the role of women in British society.
First published in 1894, Campaigns of Curiosity marks a pivotal moment in the rise of investigative journalism, a form pioneered and shaped by women using ingenuity and audacity to break new ground. Following Nellie Bly’s trail, Banks showed that “stunt” reporting could achieve both literary merit and lasting social insight.
With a new introduction by longtime correspondent Brooke Kroeger, this edition restores a forgotten pioneer to her rightful place in journalism’s history.
Celebrating a decade of Columbia Global Reports, the Forerunners series revives groundbreaking works of investigative journalism and incisive analysis published a century before CGR’s founding. These texts, once forgotten or underexplored, reflect CGR’s core mission: fearless reporting, global pe...
Discover more
About the author
Elizabeth Leonor Banks (1865–1938) was an American-born journalist and author who spent four decades in England. Renowned for her undercover investigations into domestic service and working-class life, she wrote for major London publications, championed women’s suffrage, and contributed to British wartime intelligence during World War I. She published several widely read memoirs, including Autobiography of a Newspaper Girl (1902) and The Remaking of an American (1928).
Brooke Kroeger is a correspondent and author who was, for more than a decade, a reporter, editor, and bureau chief for United Press International both in the US and abroad. She has written six books, including Undaunted: How Women Changed American Journalism and Nellie Bly: Daredevil, Reporter, Feminist. She is professor emerita of journalism at New York University, where she began teaching in 1998.
Brooke Kroeger is a correspondent and author who was, for more than a decade, a reporter, editor, and bureau chief for United Press International both in the US and abroad. She has written six books, including Undaunted: How Women Changed American Journalism and Nellie Bly: Daredevil, Reporter, Feminist. She is professor emerita of journalism at New York University, where she began teaching in 1998.
Elizabeth Leonor Banks (1865–1938) was an American-born journalist and author who spent four decades in England. Renowned for her undercover investigations into domestic service and working-class life, she wrote for major London publications, championed women’s suffrage, and contributed to Britis...
Rate this audiobook
Tell us what you think.
Listening information
Smartphones and tablets
Install the Google Play Books app for Android and iPad/iPhone. It syncs automatically with your account and allows you to read online or offline wherever you are.
Laptops and computers
You can read books purchased on Google Play using your computer's web browser.
