The Modern Orator

This is a collection of parliamentary speeches, not a penny dreadful. The Modern Orator (two volumes, 1847–1848) comprises speeches delivered in the House of Commons by four celebrated British orators: the Earl of Chatham, Richard Brinsley Sheridan, Lord Erskine, and Edmund Burke. Volume II alone contains all speeches by Charles James Fox, spanning 1770–1806 and covering constitutional, military, and colonial affairs—including motions on press liberty, the American independence question, the East India Company, parliamentary reform, slave trade abolition, and royal succession. Volume I presents selections from Chatham, Sheridan, Erskine, and Burke addressing similar political matters. The work is indexed by subject and speaker, offering a comprehensive record of late-eighteenth-century parliamentary oratory.