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Recent Posts The Abuse of Literacy Among Old Friends A Reckless Indifference to Life Dear Anne Elliot
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Extracts from Fiction

Romance, adventure and comedy from the very best fiction writers, including Jane Austen, the Brontë sisters, Charles Dickens, John Buchan, and many more.

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55

Experience Does It

By Charles Dickens

Wilkins Micawber had little to give David Copperfield at their parting, save two words of advice.

Posted February 16 2018

56

Taken for a Ride

By John Buchan

Richard Hannay sees for himself how political activists trick decent people into supporting their quest for power.

Posted December 12 2017

57

An Easy Life

By Frederick Marryat

Mr Easy believes he has missed out on fatherhood, and having nothing else to do, turns to political campaigning.

Posted November 23 2017

58

Alice gets an English Lesson

By Lewis Carroll

Alice meets Humpty Dumpty, and it turns out that she has been using words wrong all her life.

Posted September 22 2017

59

The Language of Balnibarbi

By Jonathan Swift

Lemuel Gulliver finds that the people of Balnibarbi just don’t appreciate their hardworking academics.

Posted September 16 2017

60

The Start of a Beautiful Friendship

By Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Dr Watson is looking for rooms in London, and an old colleague suggests someone who might be able to help him.

Posted August 22 2017

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Music Video Alexander Borodin: Petite Suite: VI. Rêverie

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Composition Make up sentences using these phrases, making sure you put plenty of action in.

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Rhymes Suggest words that rhyme with ‘love’.

Posted January 13 • Think and Speak

The Abuse of Literacy Reading and writing should have taught the people more than name-calling and how to manipulate opinion.

Posted January 13 • The Copy Book

Among Old Friends ‘Alpha of the Plough’ hoped Sir Arthur Conan Doyle did not treat his old friends as he treated his favourite books.

Posted January 12 • The Copy Book

Music Video Orlando Gibbons: Thus Angels Sung

Posted January 12 • Comfortable Words

A Reckless Indifference to Life In eighteenth-century England, the death penalty was the solution to almost any crime.

Posted January 11 • The Copy Book

Music Video Sir Charles Villiers Stanford: Symphony No. 3 in F Minor, Op. 28 (Irish): II. Allegro molto vivace

Posted January 10

Vocabulary Express each of these phrases in a single word.

Posted January 10

Dear Anne Elliot Anne Thackeray saw something in Jane Austen’s heroines that she missed in their more modern sisters.

Posted January 4 • The Copy Book

The Three Bears The beginning of Robert Southey’s classic fairy tale.

Posted January 2 • The Copy Book

A Man Without a Price A Russian princess admitted defeat with a most gracious compliment.

Posted January 1 • The Copy Book

Music Video Henry Purcell: Rejoice in the Lord Alway (‘the Bell Anthem’)

Posted January 1

Homonyms Show that each of these words might mean different things to different people.

Posted January 1 • Think and Speak

Hair by Hair Governments must not use ‘the good of society’ as an excuse to run our lives.

Posted December 31 2024 • The Copy Book

Music Video William Byrd: The Bells

Posted December 31 2024

Hearken to the Solemn Voice A hymn looking to the coming of Christ in judgement, sung at the Wesleys’ New Year’s Eve watch-nights.

Posted December 30 2024 • Comfortable Words

One Last Look Edith Nesbit brings down the curtain on ‘The Railway Children’.

Posted December 30 2024 • The Copy Book

Rephrasing Cast Mr Perks’s words into good plain English.

Posted December 29 2024 • Think and Speak

The Illustrious Mourner In Russia, when a blind beggar is laid to rest even the Emperor knows for whom the bell tolls.

Posted December 29 2024 • The Copy Book