How to Speak and Write Correctly

First published in 1910, this was once the essential guide for anyone seeking to master the art of English expression. Joseph Devlin, a professor of oratory and rhetoric, breaks down the architecture of good writing: grammar, sentence structure, punctuation, letter writing, essay composition, and the art of persuasive speaking. It's a product of its era: earnest, thorough, and quietly Victorian in its conviction that clear speech and writing are moral virtues. What makes it compelling today is less its prescriptive rules than what it reveals about a time when people believed mastery of language could transform one's social standing and inner character. The advice is practical and often surprisingly fresh, even as some prescriptions (never end a sentence with a preposition, for instance) have mercifully fallen by the wayside. For writers, historians of language, or anyone curious about how English instruction once looked, it serves as both a useful foundation and a fascinating artifact.