Stay informed about new posts, revisit posts from the Archive, try your hand at some brainteasers from the 1930s classroom, and listen to classical music.

About Clay Lane About NL Clay

Hundreds of short passages of history, fiction and poetry from Britain and around the world, with study notes and brainteasers on grammar and vocabulary.

Authors Subjects

Exercises in expression and imagination based on those given to pupils aged 12-13 in English schools in the 1930s.

Exercises Word Games

The King James Bible of 1611, a model of straightforward English made for reading aloud, with a selection of prayers and hymns.

Hymns KJV Bible Prayers

A selection of games with words and their letters, including Crosswords, Polywords and the Honeycomb Game.

Add Vowels Honeycomb Polywords

Find Copy Book posts in chronological order, from the story of Abraham to Julius Caesar, and from Caratacus to the outbreak of the Second World War.

Stories about our friends across the Channel, from Roman times to the Hundred Years’ War, her bloody Revolution, and the giddying rise and fall of Emperor Napoleon.

The passages in this section illustrate how people have thought of the Englishman over the centuries. They include the impressions of writers from England and also from abroad.

Passages examining Britain’s sometimes baffling constitutional monarchy, and telling the story of its enemies, its champions, and its reformers.

Tales from our cousins to the West, telling of their independence from Britain, their bloody civil war, their runaway prosperity, and the slender thread by which it hangs.

Passages defending the right and obligation of every citizen to judge whatever is good and true, and to talk back to those who govern him.

Stories illustrating noble deeds in matters both great and small, such as the noble gesture of Sir Philip Sidney, and the determination of Benjamin Disraeli.