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Franklin Delano Roosevelt owned this copy of George Riddle's A Modern Reader and Speaker while attending Harvard College in 1902. He used the volume's endpapers to record notes about speakers' postures, gestures, and voices. Roosevelt also marked brief passages within the text.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt owned this copy of George Riddle's A Modern Reader and Speaker while attending Harvard College in 1902. He used the front endpapers and three blank pages at the end of the volume to record notes about many speakers, likely classmates, paying particular attention to their physical presence and demeanor; he commented on the speakers' postures, gestures, and voices. The final manuscript notes concern "F.D.R.," who displayed "not enough life" and "needed more ruggedness." Passages on pages 22, 193-196, and 249-254 include pencil notations.