Telegram!: Modern History as Told Through More Than 400 Witty, Poignant, and Revealing Telegrams

""Why tar helpless infant with my brush neutral tinted sponsor safe?"" wired George Bernard Shaw when he was asked to become a godfather. And when John Steinbeck won the Nobel Prize, he received this congratulatory telegram from John O'Hara:""Congratulations. I can think of only one other author I'd rather see get it."" This eminently browsable and quotable collection gathers telegrams sent to mark events both large and small, personal and historical, from births and deaths to Oscars not won (Oscar Hammerstein, who won for best song in 1941, to Johnny Mercer, who lost:""Johnny. You was robbed"") to the Civil War and the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. An entire section,""Lincoln in the Telegraph Office,"" shows the president keeping abreast of battles, spurring his generals on and requesting that a deserter who was only 15 not be shot. Orson Welles, F. Scott Fitzgerald and FDR are among the other luminaries whose carefully chosen words are included in this engaging collection.