From the back: "Before the internet, before the television, radio and telephone, there was the telegraph......This is the story of the men and women who were the earliest pioneers of the on-line frontier, and the global network they created - a network that was in effect the Victorian Internet"

I found this book to be not only fascinating in and of itself, but quite well-written and entertaining. It's really a remarkable story!

I will bring this to the meetup tomorrow at Harbord House Pub.

What you have in your hands is an honest-to-goodness gift, no strings attached. You may keep it forever and ever, pass it on to a friend, or release it in the wild like I did.

If you are new to BookCrossing and find this book and this site, welcome! Enjoy the site, the book and hopefully the BookCrossing community. I hope you'll join BookCrossing (it's free!) and if you do, please consider using any previous reader of this book, or me, jessibud, as the member who referred you. Or you may remain anonymous!

If you are an old hand at BookCrossing, thanks for picking up the book! Either way, I hope you'll journal so all the previous and future readers can track this book's journey. Thanks, and happy Crossing!

Did I end up with all your books???

Picked up the meet up today.

I agree with jessibud. This was fascinating and interesting and full of anecdotes that made the history very relevant to today's internet. I knew very little about the history of the telegraph and even less about how it led to electricity being used for so much more like the phone and the light bulb. I knew about Samuel Morse and Alexander Graham Bell but had never heard of any of the players. This was a wonderful history lesson!

When my first son was born, my Mum lived in a small town in England and didn't have a phone (not unusual at that time due to the expense), so we sent notice of Iain's birth by telegraph. I had written to her week earlier telling her to expect a telegram when he was born so she would know when it came that it wasn't bearing bad news. She had grown up in post-war England where telegrams of deaths of POWs still arrived daily to their little town and she had never associated a telegram with good news until the one we sent with Iain's birth announcement. She still has that telegram on her mantle in a frame.

What a great journal note! And a nice story! Thanks, Enz. Have you ever read Eric Larson's *Thunderstruck*? It's the kind of historical stuff I know you and I both love. He writes non-fiction but it reads like fiction because he is a such a terrific storyteller

Taken to the Hamilton Meet Up at Ye Olde Squire Pub today.
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Happy reading.

Didn't get a chance to read it, but I need to clear my shelves. Taking it to the meet-up at Ye Olde Squire Pub tomorrow.