Although “snail mail” may seem old fashioned and outdated in the twenty-first century, this book argues that the creation of the Penny Post in Victorian England was just as revolutionary in its time as e-mail and text messages are today. Until Queen Victoria instituted the Postal Reform Act of 1839, mail was a luxury affordable only by the rich. Allowing anyone, from any social class, to send a letter anywhere in the country for only a penny had multiple and profound cultural impacts. The author demonstrates how cheap postage — which was quickly adopted in other countries — led to a postal “ne ... More

Although “snail mail” may seem old fashioned and outdated in the twenty-first century, this book argues that the creation of the Penny Post in Victorian England was just as revolutionary in its time as e-mail and text messages are today. Until Queen Victoria instituted the Postal Reform Act of 1839, mail was a luxury affordable only by the rich. Allowing anyone, from any social class, to send a letter anywhere in the country for only a penny had multiple and profound cultural impacts. The author demonstrates how cheap postage — which was quickly adopted in other countries — led to a postal “network” that can be viewed as a forerunner of computer-mediated communications. Indeed, the revolution in letter writing of the nineteenth century led to blackmail, frauds, unsolicited mass mailings, and junk mail — problems that remain with us today.