ABSTRACT

Scholars interested in speech before the nineteenth century face difficulties finding the sources they need to carry out their research. As James Axtell, the distinguished historian of early modern North America has commented, ‘[o]ur best evidence about human history, people’s words, have almost wholly vanished into

thin air because they were spoken and not written down’.4 Historians of the later modern period, however, are far less troubled by this problem, as the sources recording speech that are available to them are many and various. They range from the first-hand accounts of contemporary witnesses, often summary in form rather than verbatim, to more accurate reports in newspapers and official parliamentary records. They also include typescripts of speeches preserved in the private papers of those who delivered them, popular and scholarly collections of important speeches, and the texts of public utterances as printed in leaflets, pamphlets and other ephemeral publications. In addition, many twentieth-century speeches (or extracts from speeches) are preserved in radio, film and television archives, as well as on the internet.