The Copybook

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

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1285

By Konstantin Korovin (1861-1939), via Wikimedia Commons. Licence: Public domain.

Merchants of Muscovy by Clay Lane

In 1553, Richard Chancellor set out on a perilous voyage to Russia in order to bypass the Hanseatic League’s customs union.

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1286

© Гондарева Илга (Ilga Gondareva), Wikimedia Commons. Licence: CC BY-SA 3.0.

Not a Scratch! by Clay Lane

Hapless extremists try to wipe out a miraculous icon of the Virgin Mary.

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1287

Via Wikimedia Commons.

Wellington’s Secret by Samuel Smiles

The future hero of Waterloo dealt with political ambush as comfortably as he dealt with the military kind.

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1288

© Jakub-Hałun, Wikimedia Commons. Licence: CC BY-SA 4.0.

A True Gentleman of Verona by Samuel Smiles

A young man from the Italian city on the Adige River demonstrates that class has nothing to do with wealth.

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1289

By Jules Girardet, Wikimedia Commons. Licence: Public domain.

One Last Question by Charles Dickens

English lawyer Sydney Carton goes to the guillotine in place of a French aristocrat.

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1290

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

Northumberland by Wilfrid Wilson Gibson

A poem of nostalgia for the sea breezes and yellow gorse of Northumberland.

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

© Nicholas Armitage / Clay Lane, 2025

May 21 NS

May 8 OS

The Spy : In 1910, Constantine Zervakos, a young monk from the Greek island of Paros, found himself charged with espionage.
The Miracle of St John of the Caves : The story of an unexpected escape through the heart of a hill.
The Peninsular War : Napoleon’s six-year-long campaign (1808-1814) to bring Spain and Portugal into his united Europe was frustrated by Arthur Wellesley.
Thick and Thin : Express each of these ideas as a single word.
Break : Explain what each of these common expressions means, and give examples.
Blind Guide : William Wirt recalls an overpowering sermon from a blind man in a little wooden chapel.
It’s All in the Delivery : Aeschines paid tribute to the oratory of his greatest rival — whether he meant to or not.
The Road to Ruin : George Berkeley warned that industry, not financial speculation, was the guarantee of a nation’s wealth.
Signs of Command : Suggest publicly-displayed commands, and say how many of them are sentences.
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.
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