The Online Books Page

Oral reading

Here are entered works on the art and technical skill of reading aloud. Works on understanding and appreciation of various literary forms through oral presentation are entered under Oral interpretation.

See also what's at your library, or elsewhere.

• Elocution
• Reading

• Oral interpretation

• Reading aloud
• Reading, Oral
• Reading out loud

• Living With Stories: Telling, Re-Telling, and Remembering (Logan, UT: Utah State University Press, c2008), ed. by William S. Schneider (PDF with commentary at usu.edu)
• ...So They Understand...: Cultural Issues in Oral History (Logan, UT: Utah State University Press, c2002), ed. by William S. Schneider (PDF with commentary at usu.edu)
• The Art of Story-Telling, With Nearly Half a Hundred Stories (Chicago: A. C. McClurg and Co., 1916), by Julia Darrow Cowles (page images at HathiTrust)
• The Art of the Story-Teller (New York: D. Appleton and Co., 1917 (c1915)), by Marie L. Shedlock (HTML at Celebration of Women Writers)
• Educating by Story-Telling: Showing the Value of Story-Telling as an Educational Tool For the Use of All Workers With Children (Yonkers-on-Hudson, NY: World Book Co., 1919), by Katherine Dunlap Cather (page images and uncorrected OCR text at MOA)
• How to Tell a Story, and Other Essays, by Mark Twain (multiple formats at archive.org)
• How to Tell Stories to Children and Some Stories to Tell, by Sara Cone Bryant (Gutenberg text)
• Children's Stories and How to Tell Them (Springfield, MA: Home Correspondence School, c1917), by J. Berg Esenwein and Marietta Stockard
  • multiple formats at archive.org
  • page images at HathiTrust
• More Magic Pictures of the Long Ago: Stories of the People of Many Lands, With Reproductions From Works of Art and Old Manuscripts (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1920), by Anna Curtis Chandler (multiple formats at archive.org)
• Stories Children Need (Springfield, MA et al: Milton Bradley Co., c1916), by Carolyn Sherwin Bailey (page images at HathiTrust)
• The Storytellers: Six Months With the Storytellers' Magazine (compilation from early issues; New York: Storytellers Co., 1915) (multiple formats at archive.org)
• Good Stories for Great Holidays, ed. by Frances Jenkins Olcott (HTML at Virginia)
• Good Stories for Great Holidays, ed. by Frances Jenkins Olcott (illustrated HTML at Gateway to the Classics)

• Stories as Equipment for Living: Last Talks and Tales of Barbara Myerhoff (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, c2007), by Barbara G. Myerhoff, ed. by Marc Kaminsky, Mark Weiss, and Deena Metzger, contrib. by Thomas R. Cole (page images at HathiTrust)

• Telling Stories: Language, Narrative, and Social Life (Georgetown University Round Table on Languages and Linguistics 2008; Washington: Georgetown University Press, c2010), ed. by Deborah Schiffrin, Anna De Fina, and Anastasia Nylund (PDF at Georgetown)

• Transmedia Storytelling: Imagery, Shapes and Techniques (Pittsburgh: ETC Press, c2013), by Max Giovagnoli (PDF with commentary at CMU)

• The Decameron, by Giovanni Boccaccio (multiple editions)
• Snowbound: The Record of a Theatrical Touring Party, by Bram Stoker (HTML at bramstoker.org)

• Story Hour Readers Manual: The Story Method (New York et al.: American Book Co., c1914), by Ida Coe and Alice Christie Dillon
  • multiple formats at archive.org
  • page images at HathiTrust

• Tellings and Texts: Music, Literature and Performance in North India (Cambridge, UK: Open Book Publishers, 2015), ed. by Francesca Orsini and Katherine Butler Schofield (multiple formats with commentary at Open Book Publishers)

• The Catskill Fairies (New York: Harper and Bros., 1876), by Virginia W. Johnson, illust. by Alfred Fredericks
  • page images at HathiTrust
  • page images at Florida
• Grandma's Miracles, or, Stories Told at Six O'Clock in the Evening (London et al.: T. Nelson and Sons, 1902), by Isabella Macdonald Alden (page images at Google; US access only)
• Across the Common After Wild Flowers (London et al.: T. Nelson and Sons, 1895), by M. C. Cooke (page images at ufl.edu)
• As the Goose Flies (Boston: Little, Brown and Co., c1901), by Katharine Pyle (Gutenberg text and illustrated HTML)
• The Stories Polly Pepper Told to the Five Little Peppers in the Little Brown House (Boston: Lothrop Publishing Co., c1899), by Margaret Sidney, illust. by Jessie McDermott and Etheldred B. Barry (multiple formats at archive.org)

• The Storytellers' Magazine (1913-1918; issues online 1913-1917) (partial serial archives)

• The Earthly Paradise (from Boston and London editions, 1868-1870), by William Morris
  • March-August: illustrated HTML at sacred-texts.com
  • September-November: HTML at sacred-texts.com
  • December-February: HTML at sacred-texts.com

• The Audacious Raconteur: Sovereignty and Storytelling in Colonial India (Ithaca, NY and London: Cornell University Press, c2020), by Leela Prasad (PDF with commentary at Duke)

• Storytelling in Northern Zambia: Theory, Method, Practice and Other Necessary Fictions (Cambridge, UK: Open Book Publishers, c2013), by Robert Cancel (PDF and HTML with commentary at openbookpublishers.com)

• Prose Fiction: An Introduction to the Semiotics of Narrative (Cambridge, UK: Open Book Publishers, 2019), by Ignasi Ribó (multiple formats with commentary at Open Book Publishers)

• Cultural Secrets as Narrative Form: Storytelling in Nineteenth-Century America (Columbus, OH: Ohio State University Press, c2004), by Margaret Reid (PDF from Ohio State University Press)

• Transmedia Storytelling: Imagery, Shapes and Techniques (Pittsburgh: ETC Press, c2013), by Max Giovagnoli (PDF with commentary at CMU)

Items below (if any) are from related and broader terms.

• The Orator's Manual: A Practical and Philosophical Treatise on Vocal Culture, Emphasis and Gesture, Together With Selections for Declamation and Reading (Boston et al.: Silver, Burdett and Co., c1897), by George Lansing Raymond
  • multiple formats at archive.org
  • page images at HathiTrust
• Practical Elocution: For Use in Colleges and Schools and by Private Students (Philadelphia: J. W. Shoemaker and Co., 1878), by J. W. Shoemaker
  • multiple formats at archive.org
  • page images at HathiTrust
• Practice Book, Leland Powers School (1909), by Leland Powers (Gutenberg text)
• Principes de Diction (second edition, in French; Paris: P. Ollendorff, 1882), by Henri Dupont-Vernon
  • page images at HathiTrust
  • multiple formats at Google; US access only
  • multiple formats at archive.org
• The Complete Debater's Manual (Chicago: F. J. Drake and Co., c1902), by Charles Walter Brown (page images at HathiTrust)
• Public Speaking: Principles and Practice, by Irvah Lester Winter (Gutenberg text)

• The Art of the Theatre (London: G. Bles, ca. 1924), by Sarah Bernhardt, trans. by H. J. Stenning, contrib. by James Agate (page images at HathiTrust; US access only)
• The Drama, by Henry Irving (Gutenberg text and illustrated HTML)
• The Paradox of Acting: Translated With Annotations From Diderot's "Paradoxe sur le Comédien" (London: Chatto and Windus, 1883), by Denis Diderot, ed. by Walter Herries Pollock, contrib. by Henry Irving (multiple formats at archive.org)
• Shakespearean Representation: Its Laws and Limits (London: E. Stock, 1908), by Percy Fitzgerald (multiple formats at archive.org)
• Stage Confidences: Talks About Players and Play Acting (London: Charles H. Kelly, 1902), by Clara Morris (Gutenberg text)

• Bending Opinion: Essays on Persuasion in the Public Domain (Leiden: Leiden University Press, c2011), ed. by Ton van Haaften, Henrike Jansen, Jaap de Jong, and Willem Koetsenruijter, contrib. by I. Sluiter, Manfred Kraus, Marie Formarier, Christian Kock, J. Anthony Blair, Daniel J. O'Keefe, Arnolda Francisca Snoeck Henkemans, Henrike Jansen, Marianne Dingemanse, Ingrid Persoon, B. A. Andeweg, Hilde van Belle, Joel Best, Peter Burger, Lotte Anemaet, Gabry Vanderveen, Susan Hogben, Cezar Ornatowski, Bart van Klink, Oliver Lembcke, Pablo Leandro Ciocchini, Janet Takens, Anita van Hoof, J. Kleinnijenhuis, Wouter van Atteveldt, Baldwin van Gorp, Mary Vander Goot, Anders Horsbøl, Lisa S. Villadsen, and E. T. Feteris (PDF files with commentary at Project MUSE)
• Strip the Experts (1991), by Brian Martin (HTML and PDF in Australia)
• The American Debater: Being a Plain Exposition of the Principles and Practice of Public Debate (New York et al.: Ivison and Phinney, 1855), by James N. McElligott (multiple formats at Google)
• The Art of Controversy (in German and English), by Arthur Schopenhauer, trans. by T. Bailey Saunders
  • HTML at coolhaus.de
  • Gutenberg text

• Delsarte System of Oratory (fourth edition; new York: E. S. Werner, 1893), by Delaumosne, Angélique Arnaud, François Delsarte, and Marie Delsarte Geraldy, trans. by Frances A. Shaw and Abby Langdon Alger (Gutenberg text and illustrated HTML)

• Integrating Gestures: The Interdisciplinary Nature of Gesture (Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins Pub. Co., c2011), ed. by Gale Stam and Mika Ishino (PDF with commentary at John Benjamins e-Platform)
• Die Gebärden der Griechen und Römer (in German; Leipzig: B.G. Teubner, 1890), by Karl Sittl
  • multiple formats at archive.org
  • page images at HathiTrust
• Introduction to Kinesics (An Annotation System for Analysis of Body Motion and Gesture) (Washington: Dept. of State, Foreign Service Institute, 1952), by Ray L. Birdwhistell (page images at HathiTrust)

More items available under broader and related terms at left.