The Copybook

Short passages for reading, drawn from history, legend, poetry and fiction.

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KJV Bible

1243

© Pashadizel, Wikimedia Commons. Licence: CC-BY-SA 3.0.

Sweet and Sour by Samuel Johnson

The great Dr Johnson argues that you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar.

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1244

© Mstyslav Chernov, Wikimedia Commons. Licence: CC-BY-SA 3.0.

St Nicholas the Wet by Clay Lane

Two frantic parents implore St Nicholas’s help in rescuing their baby boy.

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1245

© Chris-Downer, Geograph. Licence: CC BY-SA 2.0.

Ring out the Old, Ring in the New by Alfred, Lord Tennyson

For Alfred, Lord Tennyson, Christmas was a time to let the dead past bury its dead.

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1246

© Martin Addison, Geograph. Licence: CC BY-SA 2.0.

The Voyage of the ‘Golden Hinde’ by Clay Lane

Elizabethan adventurer Sir Francis Drake combined sailing round the world with really annoying the King of Spain.

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1247

© David Dixon, Geograph. Licence: CC BY-SA 2.0.

Christmas Bells by Alfred, Lord Tennyson

The sounds of an English country Christmas helped Tennyson in his deep mourning for an old friend.

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1248

© Stefan Bauer, Wikimedia Commons. Licence: CC BY-SA 2.5.

Wenceslaus: A Life for a Life by Clay Lane

By Divine providence, the shocking murder of Good King Wenceslas led to a flowering of Christian faith in Europe.

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Clay Lane The Copybook
About Clay Lane nicholas@claylane.uk

© Nicholas Armitage / Clay Lane, 2025

May 17 NS

May 4 OS

My Native Notes : Scotsman James Boswell always spoke good English when in England, but he was careful to leave a little Scots in.
Hidden Message : Reveal the hidden message in a letter, and write a coded letter of your own.
The Great and the Good : Daniel Defoe wondered whether goodness was not preferable to greatness.
Statements, Questions and Commands : Choose a word from our list, and then use it in any one of the three basic types of sentence — if possible.
Sentegrams : These sentences, taken from English literature, have been jumbled up like an anagram; see if you can piece them back together.
Good Sense : Rewrite these sentences so that the word ‘unless’ is not used.
The Coronation of Anne Boleyn : The weight of the crown that Anne Boleyn wore proved too heavy to bear.
Abstract : Use these words in sentences as a Noun, Verb or Adjective.
Better By Example : Gregory urged the persecuted Christians of Nazianzus to be the better men.
Speed Clues : Help a friend to guess five words in under a minute.
A Proper Game of Cricket : Mary Mitford makes an appeal for the traditional village cricket match.
Mini Bios : Write a short paragraph about a prominent person, but don’t start any sentence with he or she.
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