Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book.Sample Book Insights: #1 In 1863, at age sixteen, Alexander Graham Bell first started work on his speaking machine. He planned to give the contraption a human form, and then to play this mechanical body like an organ, with keys that depressed the different portions of the tongue and lips.#2 Aleck was very close with his brother, Edward, who was just one year younger. But after finishing school, their work on the speaking machine would bring them together as a single team.#3 Melville and his brother were famous elocutionists, who helped smooth out error and give power to the voice. They worked with actors and preachers, immigrants and stutterers, to correct their speech and give power to their voices.#4 The midnineteenth century was still ruled by the centurieslong notion that the essence of being was embodied by speech. Voice was where language and thought met. Melville’s goal was to increase access to language and thus to increase access to one another.