This field of entertainment has been under-documented, but a recent survey of the field is contained in The Mechanical Turk by Tom Standage (2002).
Tom Standage, The Turk: The Life and Times of the Famous Eighteenth-Century Chess-Playing Machine.
The Victorian Internet: The Remarkable Story of the Telegraph and the Nineteenth Century's On-Line Pioneers is a 1998 book by Tom Standage.
A graduate of Oxford University, he has worked as a science and technology writer for The Guardian, as the business editor at The Economist, has been published in Wired, The New York Times, and The Daily Telegraph, and has published five books, including The Victorian Internet.
Tom Hanks | Tom Waits | Tom Jones | Tom Jones (singer) | Tom Cruise | Tom and Jerry | Uncle Tom's Cabin | Tom Petty | Tom Stoppard | Tom Clancy | Tom Wolfe | Tom Selleck | Tom Baker | Tom Brokaw | Tom Robinson | Tom Mix | Tom | Tom Paxton | Tom DeLay | Tom Sawyer | Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers | Tom Joyner | Tom Harkin | Tom Green | Tom Brady | Tom Ridge | Tom Berenger | Tom Robbins | Tom Harrell | Tom Morello |