BOOK REVIEW: Wired Love: A Romance of Dots and Dashes

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“The old, old story,” –in a new, new way.

~ Title page of Book Review: Wired Love: A Romance of Dots and Dashes

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Ella Cheeva Thayer (1849-1925) was a novelist, playwright, and telegraphist. She was a telegraph operator at the Brunswick Hotel in Boston, Massachusetts, and her experience there became the foundation for her novel, Wired Love: A Romance of Dots and Dashes. The book, published in 1879 (according to Library of Congress) [or 1880, according to almost all other sites], was a bestseller for 10 years. [Wikipedia]

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This love story follows a female telegraphist (Nattie, short for Nathalie), a young woman working as a telegraphist in the big city. She begins an acquaintance with “C”, an operator at a distant country station whose skills surprise her–as most country operators aren’t nearly as skilled. The story unfolds with surprises, fun, interesting developments, and though written 137 years ago, it’s definitely worth reading. I learned so much more about the operation of the telegraph and how it really worked. As an author who desired to know more about the true-to-history operation of the telegraph, the lives of the operators and the challenges they faced, I found this book an incredible help.

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“B m — X n;”

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which same four mystic letters, interpreted, meant that the name, or, to use the technical word, “call,” of the telegraph office over which she was present sold presiding genius, was “B m,” and that “B m” was wanted by another office on the wire, designated as “X n.”

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A little, out-of-the-way, country office, some fifty miles down the line, was “X n,” and, as Nattie signaled in reply to the “call” her readiness to receive any communication therefrom, she was conscious of holding in some slight contempt the possible abilities of the human portion of its machinery.

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~ Opening page of Wired Love: A Romance of Dots and Dashes

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Reading this surviving Victorian-era love story between two telegraph operators shortly after reading the nonfiction title The Victorian Internet: The Remarkable Story of the Telegraph and the Nineteenth Century’s On-Line Pioneers, was most helpful. Between the two titles, I learned enough to comfortably address the reality of telegraphs in the Old West. Added benefits: immersion in the language of the day, insights into courting practices and true Victorian American attitudes, a glimpse of history such as boarders in hotel-apartments, the reality of a private telegraph line, how one telegraph station ‘called’ another, how downtime was spent on the line, and so much more.

This title is available for kindle as a free read ($0.00). See first Amazon link, below. 141 pages, according to this kindle edition. Also available as a free read on Google, citing 256 pages.

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Recommended sites:

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This Title, for Sale

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Amazon also offers used paperbacks and used hardbacks (often) at a steep discount!

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A Modern Tale: Heart on the Line

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Having read Wired Love: A romance of Dots and Dashes, I was pleased to see Karen Witemeyer (one of my favorites!) come out with a much newer twist on “correspondence courtship” via telegraph wires.

By “a modern tale” I mean the book is a recent publication (2017). Note that Wired Love was published in 1880.

Heart on the Line (Ladies of Harper’s Station, Book #2) is a full-length Sweet, Christian Historical American Romance. I’ve read it and enjoyed it very much. While the books are numbered and part of a series, I know they can be read and enjoyed alone, out of order, or in order.

Find it here:

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Amazon also offers used paperbacks and used hardbacks (often) at a steep discount!

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