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Audiobook edition · 17 h 8 minPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
What makes a passage strong enough to hold a room when you speak it aloud?
Standard Selections brings poetry and prose together for reciting, reading aloud and declaiming. Robert I. Fulton, Edwin P. Trueblood and editor Thomas C. Trueblood gather passages chosen for sound, feeling and force. This is a collection to explore with your voice, where the shape of a sentence matters as much as its meaning.
The anthology belongs to the American tradition of teaching elocution. Its verse and prose offer material for the practical work of public speaking: standing, breathing, shaping the voice and holding listeners’ attention. Grief, humour, courage and conviction give the reader different feelings to express, and different ways to make words reach a room.
What you’ll discover
- Words made to carry Explore passages selected for the sound and force they bring to spoken words.
- Poetry beside prose Move between verse and prose, discovering how each gives your voice different work.
- A range of feeling Find grief, humour, courage and conviction in pieces meant to move the listener.
- The classroom speaking tradition Explore the kind of collection used to practise elocution in schools and colleges.
- A slower first reading Read silently, then aloud, noticing where the sense asks you to pause.
Who will love it
This book suits lovers of poems and speeches made for the voice, teachers and students of public speaking, and families who enjoy a reading hour.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- A speaker's treasury built for the platform
- Rome's arena and Pompeii's crowd test faith
- Ballads turn private loss into public feeling
- Short lyrics teach an image and a pause
- Solemn poems ask for awe and steady breath
- Seven great orators show the ancient art
- Six American triumphs set the standard
- Patriots, reformers and eulogists fill the platform
- Humor and dialect lighten the evening
- Scenes from plays bring the stage to the platform
Formats and delivery
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- The same book in bigger, clearer type, once the book texts are online.
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- The key ideas in about 14 minutes, to read today.
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Standard Selections
by Robert I. Fulton; Edwin P. Trueblood; Thomas C. Trueblood (editor)
A giant wrestles a bull, a lion refuses its prey, and Patrick Henry demands liberty or death in one volume.
Medium level10–20 hours to readEnglish
Excellent
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Read free3 months free · cancel anytimeFree for 3 months, then USD 0.14 a dayCancel anytimeHow it works
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In short
What do a giant wrestling a wild bull, a lion that refuses its prey, and a Virginian demanding liberty have in common? They share one book.
Standard Selections at a glance
- Reading time
- About 9 h 50 min7 h 45 min fast, 11 h 40 min slow
- Length
- 140,200 words
- Library level
- Medium longer sentences, everyday words
Reading time at 238 words a minute (fast 300, slow 200). How long the classics take to read · Updated
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
A speaker's treasury built for the platform
The book is a working tool for people who read aloud. The editors say so in the preface, which lists six aims. They want fresh pieces beside well known ones, selections that can face literary criticism, and passages that train the voice. Every choice is judged by how it sounds in a room.
The contents fall into six classes. They run from narrative and pathetic pieces, through the solemn and the patriotic, to the comic, the dramatic, and scenes from the drama.
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Which edition is right for me
- 15-minute summary
- The key ideas of the whole book in about 14 minutes. A good first look, or a refresher.
Details
- Language
- English
- Level
- Medium level
Cite this edition
Fulton, Robert I., and Edwin P. Trueblood. Standard Selections. Library of Alexandria, 2026, libraryofalexandria.com/products/standard-selections.
Fulton, R. I., & Trueblood, E. P. (2026). Standard selections. Library of Alexandria. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/standard-selections
Fulton, Robert I., and Edwin P. Trueblood. Standard Selections. Library of Alexandria, 2026. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/standard-selections.
@book{fulton2026standard,
author = {Fulton, Robert I. and Trueblood, Edwin P.},
title = {Standard Selections},
publisher = {Library of Alexandria},
year = {2026},
url = {https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/standard-selections}
}
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What is Standard Selections about?
It is a 1907 collection of poems, stories, speeches and scenes from plays, chosen for reading aloud in classrooms and on the platform. The pieces range from ballads and hymns to great orations, humor and drama.
Who compiled Standard Selections?
Robert I. Fulton, Thomas C. Trueblood and Edwin P. Trueblood, all professors of elocution and oratory, arranged and edited it. Ginn and Company published it in Boston in 1907.
What are the six sections of the book?
They are narrative, descriptive and pathetic pieces, solemn and sublime pieces, patriotic and oratorical pieces, gay and comic pieces, dramatic readings not from plays, and scenes from the drama.
The author
Robert I. Fulton
American elocutionist and author
The book was arranged and edited by three American teachers of speaking. Robert I. Fulton was dean of the School of Oratory at Ohio Wesleyan University, Thomas C. Trueblood taught elocution and oratory at the University of Michigan, and Edwin P. Trueblood taught at Earlham College. Fulton and Thomas C. Trueblood also issued other texts on public speaking, including the companion volume Choice Readings.
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