''The Victorian Internet: The Remarkable Story of the Telegraph and the Nineteenth Century's On-Line Pioneers'' is a 1998 book by Tom Standage. The book was first published in September 1998 through Walker & Company and discusses the development and uses of the

electric telegraph Electrical telegraphy is Point-to-point (telecommunications), point-to-point distance communicating via sending electric signals over wire, a system primarily used from the 1840s until the late 20th century. It was the first electrical telecom ...

during the second half of the 19th century and some of the similarities the telegraph shared with the Internet of the late 20th century. The central thesis of the book argues that of these two technologies, it was the telegraph that was the more significant, since the ability to communicate globally at all in real-time was a qualitative shift, while according to Standage the change brought on by the modern Internet was merely a quantitative shift.

The book describes to general readers how some of the uses of telegraph in commercial, soldier, and social communication were, in a sense, analogous to modern uses of the internet. A few rather unusual stories are related, about couples who fell in love and even married over the wires, criminals who were caught through the telegraph, and so on. New York utility lines in 1890

The culture which developed between telegraph operators also had some rather unexpected affinities with the modern Internet. Both cultures made or make use of complex text coding and

abbreviated An abbreviation () is a shortened form of a word or phrase, by any method including shortening, contraction, initialism (which includes acronym), or crasis. An abbreviation may be a shortened form of a word, usually ended with a trailing per ...

language

slang A slang is a vocabulary (words, phrases, and linguistic usages) of an informal register, common in everyday conversation but avoided in formal writing and speech. It also often refers to the language exclusively used by the members of pa ...

, both required network security experts, and both attracted criminals who used the networks to commit

fraud In law, fraud is intent (law), intentional deception to deprive a victim of a legal right or to gain from a victim unlawfully or unfairly. Fraud can violate Civil law (common law), civil law (e.g., a fraud victim may sue the fraud perpetrato ...

hack Hack may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Games * Hack (Unix video game), ''Hack'' (Unix video game), a 1984 roguelike video game * .hack (video game series), ''.hack'' (video game series), a series of video games by the multimedia fran ...

private communications, and send unwanted messages.

Reception

Critical reception of the book was mostly positive. ''Smithsonian'' magazine gave a positive review for ''The Victorian Internet'', but stated that it was "not the book for readers who want in-depth accounts of the lives of scientist-inventors like Thomas Edison or Charles Wheatstone, detailed financial histories of companies like

Western Union The Western Union Company is an American multinational financial services corporation headquartered in Denver, Denver, Colorado. Founded in 1851 as the New York and Mississippi Valley Printing Telegraph Company in Rochester, New York, the co ...

, or technical treatments of subjects like the development of semaphore systems and undersea cables". The ''

Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' is an American Newspaper#Daily, daily newspaper that began publishing in Los Angeles, California, in 1881. Based in the Greater Los Angeles city of El Segundo, California, El Segundo since 2018, it is the List of new ...

'' had some criticisms of the book but gave a mostly positive review.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Victorian Internet, The Technology books Books about the Internet 1998 non-fiction books History of the telegraph Works about the information economy

Contents

Reception

References

External links