Short passages for reading, drawn from history, legend, poetry and fiction.
© Roswitha Budde, Cattery vom Hohen Timp, via Wikimedia Commons. Licence: CC BY-SA 3.0.
A faithful but unprepossessing pet is turned out of hearth and home.
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Via Wikimedia Commons. Licence: Public domain.
As Japan’s ruling shoguns resist the tide of progress, a Nagasaki-based Scottish entrepreneur steps in.
By Henry Summer Watson, via Wikimedia Commons. Licence: Public domain.
Composer Ethel Smyth buys a new-fangled ladies’ bicycle, and scandalises the neighbours.
© Cogdogblog, Wikimedia Commons. Licence: CC BY-SA 2.0.
Alice meets Humpty Dumpty, and it turns out that she has been using words wrong all her life.
© Optimist on the run, Wikimedia Commons. Licence: CC-BY-SA-3.0.
The unsung surveyor from Cheshire, who built railways and made friends across the world.
Photo by Elliott and Fry, via the National Portrait Gallery and Wikimedia Commons. Licence: Public domain.
William Gladstone warns voters not to leave foreign policy in the hands of interventionist politicians.