The Copybook
Short passages for reading, drawn from history, legend, poetry and fiction.
Short passages for reading, drawn from history, legend, poetry and fiction.
Richard Hannay tracks a German spy down to a French château, but Hannay’s sense of fair play gives his enemy a chance.
Richard Hannay and Mary Lamington are on the tail of a German spy, who has been posing as an English gentleman named Moxon Ivery during the Great War. The chase has led to a French château, where Mary has uncovered a cache of biological weapons, and now Hannay has surprised the man himself.
Sixteen-year-old John Wesley Hackworth brought a locomotive over to St Petersburg, and Russia’s railway revolution was ready for the off.
British engineers and a sixteen-year-old boy played a key part in helping Imperial Russia begin her own railway revolution. In one respect, however, Russia failed to learn from the example the United Kingdom set for her: private enterprise.
A long-lived annual of riddles, rhymes and really hard maths aimed specifically at Georgian Britain’s hidden public of clever women.
The 18th century was deluged with popular magazines, almanacks and annuals filled with tidbits, extracts and riddling rhymes, but few could rival John Tipper’s “Ladies’ Diary” for longevity or circulation – or for sheer hard maths.
At fifteen John Dalton was a village schoolmaster in Kendal; at forty he had published the first scientific theory of atoms.
John Dalton (1766-1844) and his contemporary Sir Humphrey Davy could not have been less alike. Davy was a gifted communicator with an international profile; Dalton was tongue-tied and uncomfortable south of Cheshire. But both made historic discoveries, and where Davy left us Faraday, Dalton gave us Joule.
Abbot Elfric praised St Thomas for demanding hard evidence for the resurrection.
The Apostle St Thomas refused to believe reports of the resurrection of Jesus unless he saw and touched the risen Christ for himself. Some scold him for his ‘doubt’, but the English Abbot Elfric (955-1010) warmly thanked him for demanding such clear proof, and noted that Jesus was evidently expecting it.
Eurystheus pits his cousin against a son of Ares and some man-eating horses.
After seven failed attempts, King Eurystheus has still not rid himself of his cousin Heracles. Perhaps, he thinks, combat with a warrior-king of divine birth, some man-eating mares, and a savage tribe would to be enough; and certainly, things do not look good for our hero at first.