telegram

At the time, the Tana family was vacationing on a remote Yugoslav island when a telegram arrived: “The restaurant burned down. Call me, Pearl,” recalls Katerina Tana, one of Dan Tana’s daughters.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 14, 2026

Within hours of carrying the first telegram across the English Channel in 1850, the earliest “submarine telegraph”—27 miles of copper wire wrapped in a rubbery substance called gutta percha—was broken by a fishing trawler.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 4, 2026

"The telegram boy said, 'I'm sorry to tell you, but this is bad news'," he says.

From BBC ● Aug. 11, 2025

His family had to wait almost two weeks before a telegram arrived, addressed to his mother.

From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 8, 2024

“Send a telegram saying I will come at once. The next train goes early in the morning. I’ll take that.”

From "Little Women" by Louisa May Alcott

Stefansson’s telegrams to the dead men’s families are perfunctory.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 10, 2025

Other lots included telegrams from the late Duke of Edinburgh and letters from Margaret Thatcher and fellow comics Ronnie Barker and Tommy Cooper.

From BBC ● Jan. 11, 2025

At its center, a young, unnamed telegraph operator watches as the beautiful, married Lady Bradeen sends flurries of telegrams, hoping that no one will notice the messages to the dashing Captain Everard.

From Slate ● May 27, 2024

“I’ve gotten thousands of letters and telegrams from people supporting me.”

From Seattle Times ● Apr. 11, 2024

There had been no letters, no telegrams, and not a single picture postcard.

From "The Unseen Guest" by Maryrose Wood

Toward the end of 1926, Herman Mankiewicz, the screenwriter who would co-father “Citizen Kane,” telegrammed his friend Ben Hecht, the newspaperman who was finding himself between gigs and behind on his rent.

From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 11, 2023

“I didn’t know what to do with myself. I telegrammed back saying there was no way I wanted to be connected to that show.”

From New York Times ● Mar. 9, 2023

Nesbit had a serious relationship with the author Donald Barthelme before she married Gilman, and one day, Barthelme telegrammed her from Europe.

From Washington Post ● Feb. 14, 2023

At one point, after the mega-success of the "Ringo" LP, no less than John Lennon famously telegrammed Starr, saying “Congratulations. How dare you? And please write me a hit song.”

From Salon ● Oct. 25, 2019

Mrs. Guinea had telegrammed, "Is there a boy in the case?"

From "The Bell Jar" by Sylvia Plath

In 1916, Charles Evans Hughes waited two weeks before telegramming his concession to Woodrow Wilson, who noted that the message was “a little moth-eaten when it got here but quite legible.”

From Slate ● Nov. 7, 2012