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.

Praise for The Victorian Internet:

“A dot com cult classic.”—Wall Street Journal

“Sparkling.”—Forbes

“Fascinating…If you’ve ever hankered for a perspective on media Net hype, this book is for you.” —Wired

“A delightful book.”—Smithsonian

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

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

“An admirably efficient and concise telling of the story of the rise and decline of the telegraph.” —Henry petroski, author of The Pencil