abc VBB bookbox; Dots and Dashes refers to the telegraph and was written in 1879. Nattie "meets" Clem on the telegraph line, but due to miscommunication and mixups between her female and male friends, it takes a while to sort out who really belongs with who - and to get Nattie and Clem together. ( )

Tremendously cute. The type of story in the "Shop Around the Corner" and "You've Got Mail" genre, although this one pre-dates both.

Nattie, a young woman who has obtained a post in a telegraph office, is having a particularly bad few minutes. The telegrapher on the other end is sending way too fast for her to decipher, a customer is asking stupid questions, and then she upsets a bottle of ink all over herself. These things cause her to interrupt "C" (the telegrapher on the other end) several times and ask for a repeat of the message, until "C" loses patience with her and gets a little sarcastic. Nattie (who signs as "N") retorts back and also attempts to explain what was going on to cause her to be so inefficient. "C" mellows out, and the two "converse" in Morse code over the wire whenever they get a few moments the rest of the day.

"C" and "N" find over the weeks that follow that they are developing a unique friendship, and Nattie is satisfied to find out, as she soon does, that "C" is a man. She expects to never meet him in person, and so allows herself a greater degree of openness than she normally would. Of course, all this is: A) extremely UNPROFESSIONAL, and B) risky due to the possibility of deception. (This is why it feels kind of modern in places...technology has changed, but the pitfalls are the same.) Anyway, half of the story is their friendship over the wire, and the second half is their friendship in person, which actually gets MORE complicated than the formerly anonymous relationship, because Nattie finds herself tongue-tied when she's away from her telegrapher's key, and gets convinced that "C" is actually in love with her best friend.

Anyone who likes the aforementioned movies will probably like this book. ( )

The more things change, the more they stay the same. I was struck by how similar love over the wires is to online relationships. This was a fun romance that I actually found pretty informative of how telegraphs worked, in addition to just being a sweet story over all. ( )

I have been meaning to read this for years. It is about Nattie, a telegraph operator who chats whenever she can “over the wire” with C., another telegraph operator miles down the line.

I love stories where characters fall in love through exchanged messages. (Is there a simple title for this dynamic? Aside from calling it You’ve Got Mail-ish? I couldn’t find one on TVtropes. Is there an AO3 tag?) And the experiences of telegraph operators is absolutely fascinating -- simultaneously a product of the past and yet incredibly relatable from a contemporary perspective, because the internet and mobile phones mean we spend so much time communicating through text.

I was a little disappointed that, after Nattie and Clem meet in real life, the focus shifts away from the telegraph office to antics at their boardinghouse. But the story continues to be fun and delightful.

“Yes,” replied Nattie, "it's hard to make them believe sometimes that everything less than ten words is a stated price, and that we only charge per word after that number. And, speaking of ignorance, do you know I once actually had a letter brought me, all sealed, to be sent that way by telegraph. [...] and I had a young woman come in here once, who asked me to write the message for her, and after I had done so, in a somewhat hasty scrawl, she took it, looked it all over critically, dotted some 'i's,' and crossed some 't's,' I all the time staring, amazed, and wondering if she supposed I could not read my own hand-writing, then scowled and threw it down disgustedly saying, 'John never can read that! I shall have to write it myself. He knows my writing!'”
“Can such things be!” cried Miss Archer.
“But,” asked Quimby, from his uncomfortable perch on the edge of the chair, "Isn't there a—a something—a fac-simile arrangement?”
“I believe there is, but it is not yet perfected,” replied Nattie.
“Ah, well! then the young woman was only in advance of the age,” said Miss Archer; “and what with that and the telephone, and that dreadful phonograph that bottles up all one says and disgorges at inconvenient times, we will soon be able to do everything by electricity; who knows but some genius will invent something for the especial use of lovers? something, for instance, to carry in their pockets, so when they are far away from each other, and pine for a sound of 'that beloved voice,' they will have only to take up this electrical apparatus, put it to their ears, and be happy. Ah! blissful lovers of the future!” ( )

I cannot fit into one review everything I loved about this book. Witty, charming, hilarious, poignant, unbelievably relevant, Wired Love was a pure delight.

This 100 year-old novel holds a category all its own. But the premise is so timely with the rise of the cell phone--I never would have guessed at the many parallels of a texting relationship and one carried on "over the wire."

Unfortunately, the author wields a beautifully skilled vocabulary that might weary younger readers. Clean, fun and romantic, I would love to see this story on the big screen. ( )