In the period between 1880 and 1938, public speaking saw a remarkable rise in popularity among German-language writers. This study offers the first in-depth examination of this hitherto neglected phenomenon of writers' speeches, treating them as an independent genre with its own interdiscursive and media-specific characteristics. It does so by focussing on the intellectual role of writers within the Austro-German historical context. It comes with instructive statistics as well as web access to an index of over 1,400 speeches by 123 authors.
