ABSTRACT
This chapter investigates the circumstances surrounding George Du Maurier’s illustration of ‘Edison’s Telephonoscope’ published in Punch in December 1878. The telephonoscope emerged in the context of late nineteenth-century ‘discovery mania’. Media coverage on both sides of the Atlantic met Edison’s inventions with a mixture of zeal and scepticism. Contemporary readers would have been acutely aware of Edison’s invention of the telephonoscope (ear telescope or megaphone) and his claims to the invention of electric light that fall. I introduce the concept of ‘technological folklore’ to account for the rumours, hearsay, and journalist commentary that contributed to the construction of cultural representations of the telephonoscope and electric light. ‘Edison’s Telephonoscope’ represents ‘discovery mania’ by negotiating between the exaggerated claims of invention and the satirical rejection of new technology for its own sake. This chapter encourages media historians to weigh the presentist perspective, which associates ‘Edison’s Telephonoscope’ with a television or electronic screen, with the view of the contemporary reader, who would have made sense of the depiction not as a prophecy but as a speculation and critique of technology.
