The Copybook
Short passages for reading, drawn from history, legend, poetry and fiction.
Short passages for reading, drawn from history, legend, poetry and fiction.
In Charles Dickens’s tale set around Mugby Junction, a man sees his life flash by like a ghostly train.
At the start of his railway-themed story ‘Mugby Junction’, Charles Dickens wants to tell us about the lead character, whom we know thus far only as a man with two black cases labelled ‘Barbox Brothers’. He is standing with the station’s sole member of staff on the otherwise deserted, rain-soaked platform at three o’clock in the morning.
Charles Dickens explains the thinking behind Jesus Christ’s choice of friends.
Charles Dickens’s ‘The Life of Our Lord’ was written ‘for his children during the years 1846 to 1849’. Many of the themes that animate his novels find direct and uncomplicated expression in its pages, including the importance of a loving home and inspiring role-models close at hand.
A young English girl in Dr Johnson’s London struggles to share her gift for music.
The story of Anne Ford (1737-1824) is an inspirational tale of determination, which shows two contrasting sides to Georgian England, and reminds us once again that Britain made rapid social progress without the violence seen on the near Continent.
Anglo-Saxon poet Cynewulf paints a word-picture of heaven and the seraph-band that swoops and soars before the throne.
Cynewulf (possibly the 8th century bishop Cynewulf of Lindisfarne) lets his raptures flow on the Seraphim, the angels described by Isaiah, Ezekiel and St John the Divine; the singing angels, who surround the throne of God in heaven.
As a last, desperate throw of the dice in the Great War, the Germans detonated an unusual kind of weapon in St Petersburg.
At the height of the Great War, beleaguered Britain’s trusty ally Tsar Nicholas II of Russia was forced from his throne. Would the new Russian Government support the Allies? Some were naive enough to think so, but as Winston Churchill explained, the Germans had yet another deadly weapon in their arsenal.
Don Pedro’s brother John tries to ensure that the course of true love does not run smooth.
‘Much Ado About Nothing’ is William Shakespeare’s enduring comedy of love, imposture and high society, written in 1598 or the following year. The topsy-turvy plot (of which what follows can only be a glimpse) is full of gossipy wit, but it deals with a serious subject: a lady’s reputation.