O B E B IT E £ O Q XJ E M € 



TH OM AS B 

 Editor-iu- 



REED 



Chief 



For the first time the best After-dinner Speeches, Lectures, Addresses, 

 Anecdotes, Reminiscences and Repartee of America's and Eng- 

 land's most brilliant men have been selected, edit- 

 .ed, arranged, bj' an editorial board of men — them- 

 selves eloquent with word and pen — men who 

 have attained eminence in varied fields of activity. 

 These gems of spoken thought were fugitive, from 

 lack of proper preservative means, until the Hon. 

 Thomas B. Reed, upon voluntarily retiring from 

 the Speakership of the House of Representatives, 

 gathered about him these men of mr.rk and ex- 

 perience in literature, his friends and co-workers 

 in other fields, and began the task of preparing 

 this great work. 



North, East, South and West and the Mother 



Country as well, have been searched for gems in 



eveiy field of eloquence. 



Here was a lecture that had wrought upon the 

 very souls of great audiences; there an after-dinner 

 speech, which "between" the lines" was"^ freighted 'with ' the^ destinies~of ~'^- 

 tions. Here was an eulogy expressing in a few but virile words the love, 

 the honor, and the tears of millions, and there an address pregnant with 

 force— itself the fruit of a strenuous life's work. Or, perchance, a reminis- 

 cence, keen, scintillant repartee, or a story potent in significance and aflame 

 with human interest. Matter there was in abundance, for English-speaking 

 peoples are eloquent, but the best— only the best, only the great, the brilliant, 

 the worthy to endure— has been the guiding rule of Mr. Reed and his col- 

 leagues. Their editorial labors have been immense. 



Whatever the viewpoint, this work is without precedent. It has no prede- 

 cessor, no competitor, speeches that have been flashed across continents, 

 lectures that have been repeated over and over again to never-tiring audi- 

 ences (but never published), addresses that have made famous the man, 

 the time and the place— these are brought together for the first time, 

 and with them a large number of the wittiest sayings of the wittiest men of 

 the Nineteenth Century. 



For an hour— for a whole evening in the easy chair at home— for the study 

 of style and diction that have electrified brilliant assemblies— for the man 

 ambitious to become a successful or popular public speaker, and for the 

 one who has to prepare a toast or an address— this work is i. never-failing 

 source of entertainment and inspiration. Nor is this solely "a man's work." 

 "The tenderest tribute to woman 1 have ever read," said Senator Doli- 

 var when he read the manuscript of Joseph Choate's after-dinner speech— 

 "The Pilgrim Mothers." 



