Online Courtship…..in 1880!!

My daughter just sent us a fascinating piece entitled:

“Wired Love”: A tale of catfishing, OK Cupid, and sexting.

Since it’s 1880, the wires are those of the telegraph, and the two lovers are both telegraph operators who communicate using Morse Code.

“I don’t want to give too much of the plot away — I save my spoilers for below the jump. But the story, in brief, is that Nattie is at work one day when a telegraph operator in another city, who calls himself “C”, begins chatting her up. They engage in a virtual courtship, things get funny and romantic, until suddenly things take a most puzzling and mysterious turn.”

It’s really quite wild how much is recognizable in this story written in 1880…we’ve downloaded it (and printed out all 115 pages – though you can get it in various electronic formats, too), and will read it out loud, once we’re finished with Iron Heart, War Chief of the Iroquois.

This  was my Dad’s book, first printed in 1899, but my copy may be the 1927 reprint…it has a very nice embossed cover.  It’s not great literature, and I suspect that Wired Love won’t be, either – but I’m fascinated at the permanence of human nature, regardless of the changing technology around us.