Michel and Vera Fokine in “Scheherazade”, 1914 (The Music And Theatre Library of Sweden, creative commons)
Jean Ryckaert, May 1916.
Figure from Gauguin’s 1899 painting ‘Tahitian Women with Mango Blossoms’ (left); George Calderon’s pencil sketch ‘Manu’ (right)
K.N. Das Gupta and Margaret Mitchell in an Indian Dramatic Society production of The Maharani of Arakan, 1913?
Basic form of the Calderon coat of arms
The entrance to Fort Brockhurst (picture from Britain’s Past)
George Calderon c.1901
Christmas 1901 Cartoon by George Calderon
Patrick Miles in his summer house, 11 December 2016
A happy memory of Trinity College: undergraduates breakfast together in Downy V. Green, p. 77.
George Calderon, 1912
Book sent to George Calderon in Russia by his mother, Christmas 1895.
Colonel Sir Walter Coote Hedley c. 1920
Monarch Butterfly Madeira
Unpublished watercolour by George Calderon, Tahiti 1906
Frontis piece by Frank Calderon
George and Kittie Calderon 1905
Sir Richard Vincent Sutton c. 1913
Captain of the 11Recent Comments
- Jim D G Miles on From the diary of a writer-publisher: 28 Excellent entry, Dad. I like the escape room picture, of course, but the story about the Russian and the hole-in-the-wall is exceptional! (28/03/2024 at 9:58 PM)
- Patrick Miles on Short story: ‘Crox’ Thank you, dear anonymous Theo...it is so refreshing to hear the reaction of a Man of the People! Keep a good grip on those cords! 'Part II'?! The rest is secreted in lines (18/12/2023 at 10:33 PM)
- Theo on Short story: ‘Crox’ Delicious! "Are you being Served?" meets "Keeping up Appearances" via Calderotica. But Patrick, you cannot leave us dangling like that just before Christmas! One thing - c (18/12/2023 at 1:35 PM)
- Patrick Miles on Cambridge Tales 8: ‘Black Tie’ Thank you, Damian, for sharing your problem with us. It's difficult to know what to prescribe. Perhaps try examining the facts of the story (e.g. there are not 6 medics in the (20/11/2023 at 9:44 AM)
- Damian Grant on Cambridge Tales 8: ‘Black Tie’ Patrick: I read your story 'Black Tie' on Monday, and knew immediately that it didn't work for me. There was something forced, factitious; something that didn't let the elemen (17/11/2023 at 2:26 PM)
Category Archives: Heroism and Adventure
Very Old Cambridge Tales 5: ‘Stone’s Story’
‘Will you be going to Russia again?’ I asked Stone as we arrived back at his rooms from the college dinner he had stood me. ‘Not if I can help it!’ he retorted, unlocking the door and walking straight across … Continue reading
Cambridge Tales 5: ‘East of the Rhine’ (Concluded)
One afternoon in the last week of November, there was a soft knock on the door of my room. Before me stood an elegantly thin woman in her late twenties, wearing an extremely expensive-looking bleu nuit cashmere coat with a … Continue reading
Posted in Heroism and Adventure, Personal commentary
Tagged alcoholism, atrocities, Azita, Bosnia, Cambridge Tales, cemeteries, defiance, Eric Smith, genocide, Iran, massacres, militarism, NATO, Nazis, Persia, Rhine, Serbia, Srebrenica, Territorial Army, The British Army, ties, Vitez, war crimes, war graves, Winston Churchill, World War 2, Yugoslavia
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How would I write it now?
Many authors never re-read their own books. One can understand why. Some must feel that it’s not necessary as it can’t change anything (unless the book is about to have an ‘improved’ edition). Others, like George Orwell apparently, simply don’t … Continue reading
Posted in Edwardian character, Edwardian English, Edwardian literature, Edwardian marriage, Heroism and Adventure, Personal commentary
Tagged 'real time', Archie Ripley, Ashford, biographies, biography, Clare Hopkins, commemoration, comments, Corbet family, Earlham, future biographer, George Calderon, George Calderon: Edwardian Genius, Gerge Orwell, Harvard University, Houghton Library, Kent, Kittie Calderon, Mrs Shapta, Nina Corbet, Percy Lubbock, Professor Rose, publishers, Sam&Sam, The Brave Little Tailor, The Great War, Third Battle of Krithia, William Caine, World War I, Ypres
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No place like Home
Ukrainian literature is flourishing, even or especially as the war rages. Perhaps this will not surprise you, as whenever we see and hear Ukrainians on our televisions they are lively, articulate, cultured, witty, open to the world and dialogue, which … Continue reading
Posted in Heroism and Adventure, Personal commentary
Tagged comments, Crimean Tatars, dystopias, Fedor Dostoevskii, folklore, Huckleberry Finn, Lord of the Flies, Maria Miniailo, Michael Pursglove, Natalia Pniushkova, novels, political allegory, realism, Russo-Afghan War, The Children of Grad, The Russo-Ukrainian War, Ukraine, Ukrainian literature, Utopias, Waterloo Fiction, William Golding
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Guest post by Damian Grant: ‘Lady Chatterley’s Lover’ and ‘The Winter’s Tale’
This nineteenth-century engraving of Florizel and Perdita does indeed make them look — to use Lady Chatterley/Connie’s dismissive phrase about the Elizabethans — somewhat ‘upholstered’. In all the excitement — which has never quite subsided — about the sexual explicitness … Continue reading
Posted in Edwardian character, Edwardian marriage, Heroism and Adventure, Personal commentary
Tagged 'Snake', Algernon Swinburne, Byzantium, Charles Baudelaire, comments, Constance Reid, D.H. Lawrence, Florizel, Forest of Arden, George Eliot, High Park Wood, John James Audubon, John Keats, John Milton, Juno, Lady Chatterley, Lady Chatterley's Lover, Mary Russell Mitford, Michaelis, Mrs Bolton, Mrs Gaskell, Oliver Mellors, Perdita, Proserpina, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, sex, sexuality, Sir Clifford Chatterley, T.S. Eliot, The Elizabethans, The Great War, The Winter's Tale, W.B. Yeats, wild flowers, William Shakespeare, World War I, Wragby
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Some Calderonian footnotes to ‘Women in Love’
George Calderon was public-school, Oxford, backed by his wife’s unearned income, rather patriotic, perceived as conservative; D.H. Lawrence was a miner’s son, self-supporting and often penurious, rather oikophobic, perceived as revolutionary. What could they possibly have had in common? They … Continue reading
Posted in Edwardian character, Edwardian English, Edwardian literature, Heroism and Adventure, Modern parallels, Personal commentary
Tagged Anton Chekhov, Battle of the Somme, Breadalby, Catherine Brown, Centre Party, comments, Constance Garnett, D.H. Lawrence, Dwala, elopement, English Review, Ernest Weekley, Fanny Stepniak, Far End, Fathers and Sons, Ford Hueffer, Ford Madox Ford, Frieda Lawrence, Frieda Weekley, Garsington, George Calderon, George Calderon: Edwardian Genius, Hampstead, Ivan Turgenev, John Worthen, Kittie Calderon, polymathery, revolution, The Edwardians, The Great War, Thomas Sturge Moore, translation, Trinity College Oxford, Well Walk, William Rothenstein, Women in Love, World War I
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John Baines: exemplar of a young officer
‘Exemplar’, not ‘exemplary’, because John Stanhope Baines, son of the Herbert Stanhope Baines who features in Laurence Brockliss’s recent guest post, would not have wanted anyone to regard him as an exemplary young officer of World War I. When he … Continue reading
Posted in Edwardian character, Edwardian marriage, Heroism and Adventure, Personal commentary
Tagged Andrew Baines, Armistice, Austro-Hungary, Baines dynasty, Belgium, British Expeditionary Force, Bulgaria, Dearest Mother, Elisabeth Wicksteed, Elizabeth Baines, Erich Ludendorff, Gallipoli, George Calderon, Germany, Greece, Helion, Herbert Stanhope Baines, Honor Baines, Joanna Palmer, John Baines, Laurence Brockliss, Macedonia, Raphael Kirchner, roadmaking, Royal Engineers, Salonika, Sappers, The Great War, The Leeds Mercury, The Times, Turkey, Winchester College, Windsor Spring Festival, World War I, Ypres
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Guest post: Andrew Tatham, ‘A Group Photograph and the Pursuit of Personal History’
If there’s anything to be learned from biography it is that chance meetings can change lives. I first met Patrick Miles next to the warmth of the Aga in my cousin’s kitchen in 2006. I had met many of my … Continue reading
Posted in Heroism and Adventure, Modern parallels, Personal commentary
Tagged A Group Photograph, Andrew Tatham, art films, Battle of Passchendaele, Belgium, biographies, biography, British Expeditionary Force, Cyril Kingerlee, Elaine Kingerlee, exhibitions, George Calderon, George Calderon: Edwardian Genius, Gyles Brandreth, history, I Shall Not Be Away Long, Jeremy Vine, John Carey, Keith Simpson MP, Martin Middlebrook, Melvyn Bragg, Norfolk Open Studios, Passchendaele, Patrick Miles, Stephen Lucena, The Great War, William Boyd, World War I, Ypres
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George Calderon: A complete new work surfaces
Garry Humphreys, author of a forthcoming book on Arthur Somervell (1863-1937), and I have now received from the archives of the Royal College of Music a link to the score of Somervell’s music for George’s ballet libretto The Blue Cloth (which … Continue reading →