“Impromptu”; or, How to Think on Your Feet

Impromptu, or How to Think on Your Feet is a 1910 manual by Grenville Kleiser (1868-1935), the Canadian-born speech teacher who left Yale’s divinity faculty to become America’s busiest self-improvement author. Published by Funk and Wagnalls, the book trains the reader to speak without notes: marshalling thought quickly, controlling nerves, and practising the set forms of occasion speeches. Kleiser’s correspondence courses sold by the tens of thousands, and his confident method still reads like the granddaddy of every public-speaking course since. Free PDF download available on BDeBooks.