(no subject)

[skygiants]

So you guys remember when I read that book about telegraphy and became really indignant that the world had not provided me with heaps and heaps of telegraph romance!

It turns out there is at least one: Wired Love: A Romance of Dots and Dashes, which I would venture to say is probably the most adorable rom-com to be written in 1879.

Wired Love begins with a classic meet-cute, when young telegraph operator (with big dreams!) Nattie accidentally screws up a message she receives from somebody a few stations further down the telegraph line. Pretty soon Nattie and "C" are basically spending all their time at work texting "You're adorable!" "No, YOU'RE adorable!" at each other in Morse Code.

(Of course, since there is no privacy on a telegraph line, every other irritated telegrapher on the stations in between is just like GET OFF THE LINE AND GET A ROOM, UGH. Nattie and C are indeed adorable; nonetheless, I sympathize deeply with all these other telegraphers.)

Besides Nattie and C, there is also a cast of other characters, including:

- Cyn, Nattie's aspiring opera singer BFF, who is WONDERFUL IN ALL WAYS and whom Nattie loves and is also jealous of in the way that you're always jealous of your friends who are achieving awesome things while you feel like you're stuck in place

(Sidenote: a significant theme of this book is about women being ambitious and wanting to achieve awesome things! Not bad for 1879)

- Jo, the Bohemian next door, who buzz-cuts his hair in order not to look like a Romantic poet

- Quimby, hopelessly in love with Nattie and as clumsy as a modern YA heroine, who probably belongs in a Wodehouse novel rather than this book. Sorry, Quimby!

- That Troll At the Telegraph Station Down the Line

Rom-com hijinks rapidly ensue, including several cases of mistaken identity and Big Misunderstandings, but everything turns out all right in the end (well, for everyone except poor Quimby.) There are also several great scenes of people talking secretly together at big parties by tapping out Morse Code with their fingers, and what I believe may be officially the first insinuation of phone sex ever to appear in fiction:

"That any young woman should be so immodest as to establish telegraphic communication between her bed-room and the bed-room of two young men is beyond my comprehension!"

This, from the prim and scandalized landlady, after discovering a ~secret telegraph station~ in Nattie's bedroom. CONGRATS, MISS KLING, you just invented a new genre of porn!

(However, as charming as this book is, it is still not a lesbian telegraph romance, so the field is WIDE OPEN, cough innerbrat cough)

Comments

[kaberett]

WHERE DO I SIGN UP

[downloaded]

[skygiants]

PROJECT GUTENBERG IS A FONT OF WONDERS

[rymenhild]

*_________*

Where do you find these fantastic books?

[skygiants]

In this case, from Boing Boing via a dreamwidth post which was linked to me by Gen! A LONG AND TORTUOUS CHAIN to delightful reward. :D

[kate_nepveu]

*downloads*

[skygiants]

>:D

[innerbrat]

SOME OF US HAVE THHINGS TO WRITE.

SOME OF US KNOW WHAT IT IS SOME OF US HAVE TO WRITE.

YOU WOULDN'T WANT ME TO PRIORITISE TELESAPPHISM OVER YULETIDE WOULD YOU?

[bookblather]

There's an easy solution here!

Write telesapphism FOR Yuletide.

[skygiants]

I'M NOT SAYING RIGHT THIS MINUTE, although admittedly I do also enjoy bookblather's solution.

[tree_and_leaf]

THAT SOUNDS AMAZING!

*downloads*

[skygiants]

:D!

[qian]

:D Ooh! I am especially excited because late 19th century/early 20th century American novels about girls are one of my THINGS. (I don't know why I instantly thought the book had to be American. Something about the names, I think? The author's as well as the characters'!)

*downloads* YAY

[skygiants]

Haha, you are right though, it's definitely American! And an excellent example of Late 19th Century American Aspiring Author Vaguely Self-Insert Heroine, no less, which is one of the best sub-genres of the type.

[elviella]

/PRESSES DOWNLOAD ENTHUSIASTICALLY

I am kind of surprised but also delighted such a thing exists? YAY.

[skygiants]

I also was sort of surprised! Especially since I had been SO RECENTLY bewailing the lack of telegraph romance. It's like it was written just for me! . . . a hundred and thirty years ago!

[izilen]

DID YOU TELL ME ABOUT THIS BOOK BEFORE? I feel like you might have done. EITHER WAY, I have downloaded the Kindle because clearly this is very relevant to my interests and I must read it asap.

[skygiants]

If I did not that was clearly an oversight on my part! IT'S SO CUTE. (And, hey, historical romance that involves NO ARISTOCRATS and instead focuses on people with jobs! \o/)