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The Copy Book

The Literary and Philosophical Society of Newcastle-upon-Tyne.

Photo by Michael D. Beckwith. Public domain image. Source
Clay Lane

The Copy Book

A Library of History and Literature in English

February 15 February 2 OS

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This page is an index to all 1638 posts in The Copy Book.

The Copy Book is an ever-growing library of short passages from history and literature, intended for practice in paraphrase and précis or simply for reading pleasure. They include brief summaries and eyewitness accounts of major events in our national history, and extracts from fables, poetry, plays, novels, political speeches and biography. Many were included by NL Clay in his anthologies of ‘straightforward English’.

You can keep up-to-date with new posts, and discover old posts you may have missed, with the Clay Lane Blog, where you will also find a selection of word games and exercises in grammar and composition.

The posts are currently listed most recent first. Use the buttons below to sort the posts alphabetically, or shuffle the list so you can find posts from right across the collection.

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1 ★ For Today

A Light to Lighten the English

Even before he was born, St Dunstan was marked out to lead the English Church and nation to more peaceful times.

In 793, Vikings swept across Northumbria and extinguished the beacon of Lindisfarne, symbol of England’s Christian civilisation. Much of the land lay under a pagan shadow for over a century, but St Dunstan, Archbishop of Canterbury in the reign of King Edgar (r. 959-975), helped to rekindle both Church and State.

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★ On This DayFebruary 2 os3 posts

Candlemas

Picture: © The Presidential Press and Information Office, Wikimedia Commons. Licence: CC-BY-SA 4.0.. Source.

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2

The Moral Case for Family Farms

Richard Cobden called on Parliament to support small, family-owned farms.

In 1864, Richard Cobden MP published an open letter arguing that small-holdings owned by the farmer, with the absolute right of inheritance, were the best guarantee of public morality and national prosperity. He began with the claim of public morality, arguing that the Government’s policy of super-farms was a step back towards feudalism, and a blow to aspiration.

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Picture: © Christine Matthews, Geograph. CC BY-SA 2.0.. Source.

3

Hiawatha Takes a Photograph

Lewis Carroll records a suburban photoshoot in the style of Longfellow.

The distinctive rhythm and tricks of speech that Henry Longfellow used in his narrative poem The Song of Hiawatha (1855) were just begging to be parodied. Lewis Carroll could not resist the temptation, nor could he resist descending from the lofty tale of a Native American warrior to suburban photography, in which Carroll was an early pioneer.

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Picture: By Joaquín Sorolla (1863-1923), via Wikimedia Commons. Public domain.. Source.

4

Nouns of Number

William Cobbett gives his son James some helpful examples of collective nouns.

In 1818, William Cobbett MP published some letters written to his son James, in which he had developed a thorough introduction to English grammar. Cobbett was a man of strong opinions, and more than happy to illustrate his remarks on good, plain English with some good, plain speaking on corruption in the House of Commons.

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Picture: By John Wallace, via Wellcome Collection and Wikimedia Commons. Public domain.. Source.

5

Hiawatha’s Inspiration

Henry Longfellow tells us how his tale of a heroic Native American warrior came to him.

In 1855, American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow published The Song of Hiawatha, a long narrative poem named after the twelfth-century Ojibwe warrior and leader of the Iroquois Confederacy of Native American peoples. The tale he told was wholly fictitious, but in the opening lines he nevertheless told us where he got it from.

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Picture: © Balkowitsch, Wikimedia Commons. CC BY-SA 4.0.. Source.

6

The Travellers and the Axe

Two men find an axe, and then find some trouble, but they aren’t keen on sharing either of them.

A well-known politician once told entrepreneurs to stand back, look at their handiwork and say not ‘I built that!’ but ‘We built that!’, since no one does anything without the help of wider society. On the surface, this little Aesop’s Fable appears to back him up: the reader must be left to judge how deep the similarity goes.

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Picture: © Olaf Tausch, Wikimedia Commons. CC BY-SA 4.0.. Source.

7

The Prophecy of Peter of Pomfret

Peter foretold that King John would cease to be England’s sovereign, and he was right, though John still wore his crown.

Peter of Pomfret (Pontefract, near Wakefield in Yorkshire’s West Riding) was a simple, unlettered hermit who incautiously prophesied that by Ascension Day in 1213, King John would no longer be king of England. When that day had passed, and John still sat upon his throne, the King had poor Peter hanged; but as Sir George Wrong explains, the prophecy wasn’t so wide of the mark.

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Picture: By Edward Altham (1629–1694), via Wikimedia Commons. Public domain.. Source.