The Younger Verse Speakers Anthology Book II

The Younger Verse Speakers Anthology Book II (1954) by E. Guy Pertwee and Marjorie Lyon
Publisher: Samuel French
ISBN: None
Condition: Fair

If Book I introduced young speakers to the perilous world of standing in front of an audience without dissolving into panic, The Younger Verse Speakers Anthology Book II assumes they survived the experience and are now ready for more.

Published in 1954, this second volume continues the noble educational mission of transforming ordinary children into confident reciters of poetry, dramatic verse and carefully selected literary pieces. In an age before PowerPoint presentations, YouTube tutorials and the widespread belief that "winging it" counts as preparation, anthologies like this were serious business.

Compiled by E. Guy Pertwee and Marjorie Lyon, the book offers a fresh collection of material designed for performance rather than silent reading. Every poem, speech and dramatic extract exists for a purpose: to be delivered before an audience with clarity, confidence and enough expression to convince listeners that the speaker genuinely understands what they are saying.

The selections almost certainly range from the humorous to the heroic, from the whimsical to the worthy. Somewhere within these pages are verses that delighted generations of schoolchildren, and others that were probably greeted with the quiet despair of youngsters suddenly informed they would be performing them in front of parents, teachers and visiting dignitaries.

What makes the anthology particularly charming today is the educational philosophy behind it. The editors clearly believed that confidence could be learned, eloquence could be practised and character could be improved through the disciplined art of public speaking. It is an approach that feels wonderfully optimistic and just a little terrifying.

As a Samuel French publication, the book naturally carries a theatrical flavour. These are not pieces intended to sit quietly on the page. They were written to be spoken aloud, projected to the back of a hall and delivered with sufficient enthusiasm to keep the audience awake after the interval.

Our copy is in Fair condition, which suggests it has spent decades doing exactly what it was meant to do. It may have accompanied nervous pupils to competitions, speech festivals, drama classes and school concerts. The wear it carries feels less like damage and more like evidence of a long and productive career in the service of youthful self-improvement.

For modern readers, the book offers a fascinating glimpse into a vanished educational culture. It recalls a time when clear speech was a prized accomplishment, memorisation was expected and standing before a crowd was considered an essential life skill rather than a form of psychological warfare.

Collectors of educational books, drama enthusiasts and lovers of vintage anthologies will all find something to enjoy here. Even those with no intention of ever reciting a poem may appreciate its period charm and its reminder that there was once an entire industry devoted to helping children speak confidently in public.

A delightful survivor from the age of elocution lessons, school concerts and earnest cultural improvement. Proof that long before social media encouraged everyone to broadcast their thoughts, previous generations were already being trained to command an audience, only with rather better grammar and considerably more poetry.

Keep browsing: See more Poetry books Other books by E Guy Pertwee and Marjorie Lyon