Direct, comprehensive, well organized, simple in statement, "Elements of Rhetoric" is in all respects well fitted to fulfill its assigned role as a textbook. The remarks on practical problems and the examples and analogies confirm contemporary reports that Whately was himself a talented and stimulating teacher.

The modern field of speech was born near the beginning of the twentieth century, some seventy years after Whately wrote. But influential leaders in the new field endorsed Whately s judgments, and courses and textbooks in public address have remained strongly influenced by his...

The five essays presented here "Rhetoric," "Style," "Language," "Conversation," and "Greek Literature" were published together for the first time in "The Collected Writings of Thomas De Quincey" in 1889 1890. Frederick Burwick brings the essays together again in this volume, introducing them by tracing the sources and development of a belletristic theory of rhetoric, which he says is one of the most original, and for a few critics, the most puzzling of the nineteenth century. Burwick makes the edition complete with a comprehensive index and a selected bibliography."