The Victorian Internet: The Remarkable Story of the Telegraph and the Nineteenth Century's On-line Pioneers

A new paperback edition of the first book by the bestselling author of A History of the World in 6 Glasses—the fascinating story of the telegraph, the world’s first “Internet,” which revolutionized the nineteenth century even more than the Internet has the twentieth and twenty first.

The Victorian Internet tells the colorful story of the telegraph's creation and remarkable impact, and of the visionaries, oddballs, and eccentrics who pioneered it, from the eighteenth-century French scientist Jean-Antoine Nollet to Samuel F. B. Morse and Thomas Edison. The electric telegraph nullified distance and shrank the world quicker and further than ever before or since, and its story mirrors and predicts that of the Internet in numerous ways. Tom Standage is the former technology editor and current business editor at the Economist. He is the author of A History of the World in 6 Glasses, The Turk, and The Neptune File. The Victorian Internet tells the story of the telegraph, the world's first 'internet,' which revolutionized the nineteenth century even more than the internet has the twentieth and twenty-first.  The electric telegraph nullified distance and shrank the world quicker and further than any technology before or since, and its story mirrors and predicts that of the internet in numerous intriguing ways.  Tom Standage covers the creation of the telegraph and remarkable impact it had on communication and society.  He writes about the visionaries, oddballs, and eccentrics who pioneered it, from the eighteenth-century French scientist Jean-Antoine Nollet to Samuel F. B. Morse and Thomas Edison.  By 1865, telegraph cables spanned continents and oceans, revolutionizing the ways countries dealt with one another.  The new technology gave rise to creative business practices and new forms of crime.  Romances blossomed over the wires.  Secret codes were devised by some and cracked by others.  The benefits of the network were relentlessly hyped by advocates and vehemently dismissed by skeptics.  Government regulators tried and failed to control the new medium.  Attitudes toward everything from news gathering to war had to be reconsidered.  Meanwhile, on the wires, a technological subculture with its own customs and vocabulary was establishing itself.   As globalization continues to makes the world seem smaller, The Victorian Internet reflects on what was the greatest revolution in communication since the invention of the printing press.  The telegraph took that initial step toward connectedness across geographical, economical and social distances.

"With every new technology, we overestimate how quickly people change their behavior. This dot-com cult classic compares Web fever to the awe of the telegraph. When Queen Victoria sent the first transatlantic cable to President Buchanan in 1858, the London Times said that the invention 'has half undone the Revolution of 1776,' and torch-bearing revelers, celebrating the cable's completion, nearly burned down New York's City Hall. Publisher James Gordon Bennett rued: 'Mere newspapers must submit to destiny and go out of existence.' What was the best way to profit? Faster communications created our Information Age, but the telegraph industry was a short-lived wonder. By 1880, Western Union carried 80% of the traffic. Then came the phone."—L. Gordon Crovitz, The Wall Street Journal

“Standage has written a lively book on the telegraph and its roles in helping 19th century business and technology grow . . . The Victorian Internet demonstrates engagingly that not even the 21st century technology is totally new.”—Denver Post

“[The telegraph’s] capacity to convey large amounts of information over vast distances with unprecedented dispatch was an irresistible form, causing what can only be called global revolution.”—Washington Post

“An entertaining primer on a complex subject of increasing interest.”—Los Angeles Times Sunday Book Review

"One of the most fascinating books of the dotcom era . . . Standage is a good storyteller, and provides an engaging account of the rise and fall of the telegraph."—The Financial Times

"Blends anecdote, suspense and science into richly readable stuff."—The Independent

“A fascinating walk through a pivotal period in human history.”—USA Today

"Standage tells his fascinating story in an engaging, readable style, from the moment a bunch of Carthusian monks get suckered into a hilarious human electrical-conductivity experiment in 1746 to the telegraph’s eventual eclipse by the telephone. If you’ve ever hankered for a perspective on media Net hype, this book is for you.”—Hari Kunzru, Wired

"Richly detailed . . . Standage's writing is colourful, smooth and wonderfully engaging."—Smithsonian magazine

"A new technology will connect everyone! It's making investors rich! It's the Internet boom—except Samuel Morse is there!"—Fortune magazine

“This book should be essential reading for those caught up in our own information revolution.”—Christian Science Monitor

“I was simply fascinated by this book. It contains parallels between the reception of the telegraph and the Internet which I knew nothing about.”—Vinton Cerf, co-inventor of the Internet

"An inspired and utterly topical rediscovery of the emergence of the earliest modern communications technology."—William Gibson, author of All Tomorrow's Parties

"A great read . . . The book makes the argument that the telegraph in its day was much more revolutionary than the internet is in our day."—Jimmy Wales, co-founder of Wikipedia.org

“An admirably efficient and concise telling of the story of the rise and decline of the telegraph. As with all good case histories, this one excites the mind with parallels to present day experience.”—Henry Petroski, author of The Pencil: A History of Design and Circunstance

"An almost unputdownable account of a technical revolution of a magnitude and impact that in many ways arguably was larger than that of the Internet . . . a useful and very rewarding . . . reading for anyone."—Dr. Henrik Nilsson, University of Nottingham

“A lively, short history of the development and rapid growth a century and a half ago of the first electronic network, the telegraphs, Standage’s book debut is also a cautionary tale in how new technologies inspire unrealistic hopes for universal understanding and peace, and then are themselves blamed when those hopes are disappointed.”—Publishers Weekly

“A fascinating overview of a once world-shaking invention and its impact on society. recommended to fans of scientific history.”—Kirkus Reviews

“This lively, anecdote-filled history reveals that the telegraph changed the world forever—from the hand-carried-message world to an instantaneous one . . . Standage has it all here, including the role the telegraph played in war (Crimea), spying (the Dreyfus affair, in which Captain Dreyfus was first betrayed and then saved by a te

Imagine an almost instantaneous communication system that would allow people and governments all over the world to send and receive messages about politics, war, illness, and family events. The government has tried and failed to control it, and its revolutionary nature is trumpeted loudly by its backers. The Internet? Nope, the humble telegraph fit this bill way back in the 1800s. The parallels between the now-ubiquitous Internet and the telegraph are amazing, offering insight into the ways new technologies can change the very fabric of society within a single generation. In The Victorian Internet, Tom Standage examines the history of the telegraph, beginning with a horrifically funny story of a mile-long line of monks holding a wire and getting simultaneous shocks in the interest of investigating electricity, and ending with the advent of the telephone. All the early "online" pioneers are here: Samuel Morse, Thomas Edison, and a seemingly endless parade of code-makers, entrepreneurs, and spies who helped ensure the success of this communications revolution. Fans of Longitude will enjoy another story of the human side of dramatic technological developments, complete with personal rivalry, vicious competition, and agonizing failures. --Therese Littleton

Excellent book by British author who follows the invention and development of the telegraph with an emphasis on changes wrought in commerce, industry, governments, etc., drawing parallels to the digital revolution and the internet of today. He fails to mention the leap to radio telegraphy brought about by Marconi and others.

First Kindle book...

Better off going to the public library and returning the book instead of having paid on line...

As an IT guy, it's nice to see the parallels of the internet and the early phone system. Especially how hard it was to convice people that the phone is an effective (and cost effective) communication tool. I can almost predict what reactions to the internet are going to happen next!! Great reading if you like this type of thing.

In this book Tom Standage writes of "The Remarkable Story of the Telegraph and the Nineteenth Century's On-Line Pioneers." He shows, quite well, how the invention and popularization of the telegraph in many ways foreshadowed the world wide web. In a matter of just years the world shrank through this amazing new communication medium that was almost infinitely faster than the train and steam boat which, until that time, were the fastest bearers of information. If the book has a downside, it would be where Standage seems to over-reach just a little bit, reading the telegraph through the lens of the internet instead of the other way around. Still, it is fascinating to learn of "online" communication that saw men and women meet and marry through the wires much as people do today through the web and to read of the way society struggled to adapt to a medium of communications that was light years ahead. There are some good lessons for us to learn here. This is a book that will appeal to anyone who is interested in technology or history or the confluence of the two.

This is a top-notch tale of the remarkable invention of the telegraph -- and how it blossomed from nascent experimental use in France, to the creation of Samuel Morse's electric telegraph which eventually interconnected the entire planet by the end of the 19th century. In all, "The Victorian Internet" by Tom Standage is a fascinating review of the history of the telegraph and how it parallels the Internet today.

Even the title of the book indicates that the Victorian era was when the telegraph's use was at its height. People used it then much as they use the Internet today: to communicate with family and friends, expedite commerce, seek romance ... and deceive the unwitting through scams.

We often think of the telecommunications revolution as being a primarily late-20th century innovation, but this book proves this is not so. In fact, if any group can lay claim to having to endure the greatest technological paradigm shift -- it would be our forebears from the mid to late 19th century.

For prior to this point, the fastest way in which information could travel was the speed of a charging horse or fast sailboat. However, with the creation of the first optical, then later electrical telegraph, what once would have taken months to ferry a message across vast distances was cut down to a few seconds.

Moreover, the seeds for many of the inventions and modern conveniences we take for granted now (i.e. the fax, telephone, Internet, etc.) are direct descendants of the telegraph and the pioneering spirit that caused it to undergo many improvements in its design. For example, the operating principle behind the telephones we use everyday was discovered quite accidentally when Alexander Graham Bell sought to improve upon the design and capacity of an existing telegraph. And the very word "network" itself derived from the "net-works" of telegraph cable which crisscrossed the globe. [The term "Internet" itself, comes from the telegraphic idea of "interconnected networks."]

This short book is a fun and fascinating read (which I often found hard to put down), showing that the telegraph and today's Internet have more in common than we know. Thus proving what wise King Solomon had already exclaimed thousands of years ago:

"That which has been is what will be,

That which is done is what will be done,

And there is nothing new under the sun.

Is there anything of which it may be said,

'See, this is new'?

It has already been in ancient times before us."