The entrance to Fort Brockhurst (picture from Britain’s Past)
Christmas 1901 Cartoon by George Calderon
Michel and Vera Fokine in “Scheherazade”, 1914 (The Music And Theatre Library of Sweden, creative commons)
Patrick Miles in his summer house, 11 December 2016
A happy memory of Trinity College: undergraduates breakfast together in Downy V. Green, p. 77.
Basic form of the Calderon coat of arms
K.N. Das Gupta and Margaret Mitchell in an Indian Dramatic Society production of The Maharani of Arakan, 1913?
Jean Ryckaert, May 1916.
Frontis piece by Frank Calderon
Unpublished watercolour by George Calderon, Tahiti 1906
George and Kittie Calderon 1905
Captain of the 11
Sir Richard Vincent Sutton c. 1913
Figure from Gauguin’s 1899 painting ‘Tahitian Women with Mango Blossoms’ (left); George Calderon’s pencil sketch ‘Manu’ (right)
Book sent to George Calderon in Russia by his mother, Christmas 1895.
George Calderon c.1901
Monarch Butterfly Madeira
Colonel Sir Walter Coote Hedley c. 1920
George Calderon, 1912Recent 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: Modern parallels
‘People are reading an awful lot…
…and many booksellers are doing mail order,’ writes Susan Hill in The Spectator. I should say they are! Click the prompt at the bottom of this post to buy my blockbuster biography from Sam&Sam while stocks last! Obsessed with self-image, … Continue reading
Posted in Edwardian character, Edwardian English, Edwardian literature, Edwardian marriage, Heroism and Adventure, Modern parallels, Personal commentary
Tagged activism, Anna Karenina, Anton Chekhov, biographies, British Expeditionary Force, Dardanelles, Edward VII, Gallipoli, George Calderon, George Calderon: Edwardian Genius, Kittie Calderon, Middlemarch, New Drama, Nina Corbet, Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry, polymathery, portfolio career, publicity, Russia, Sam&Sam, self-isolation, Susan Hill, Tahiti, The Edwardians, The Great War, The Spectator, Third Battle of Krithia, Times Literary Supplement, World War I, Ypres
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And the exhibition?
The actual exhibition The Rising Tide: Women at Cambridge is one of the best I have seen at the University Library in fifty years. Subsequent to my experience of the PR, I have visited it twice, spending a total of an … Continue reading
Posted in Edwardian character, Edwardian marriage, Modern parallels, Personal commentary
Tagged Agnata Ramsay, Behave Badly, Cambridge University Library, Chrystabel Proctor, Clare College, degrees for women, Elizabeth Hughes, Emily Davies, Emma Thompson, Emmeline Pankhurst, George Calderon, Germaine Greer, Girton College, Joanna Womack, lavatory paper, marketing, Men's League for Opposing Woman Suffrage, Millicent Fawcett, National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies, Newnham College, Philip Snowden, PR, Queen Anne, Sandi Toksvig, suffragettism, suffragism, The Rising Tide: Women at Cambridge, Votes for Women, Women's Social and Political Union
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A stone cries out
I have assiduously avoided expressing my own views about controversial matters on Calderonia, as it is simply not a personal blog in that sense. I am as silent as a stone on such things. Sometimes, however, as someone said, even … Continue reading
Posted in Edwardian character, Modern parallels, Personal commentary
Tagged Anton Chekhov, Behave Badly badges, Cambridge University Library, comments, gender equality, marketing, merchandise, Milstein Exhibition Centre, PR, The Rising Tide: Women at Cambridge, Three Sisters, Votes for Women
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The War again
As readers of George Calderon: Edwardian Genius will know (go on, try it!), George and Kittie were very close to the Pym family, whose home was Foxwold at Brasted Chart in Kent. Violet Pym was Kittie’s niece by her first marriage and, … Continue reading
Posted in Edwardian character, Edwardian English, Edwardian marriage, Heroism and Adventure, Modern parallels, Personal commentary
Tagged Alan Moorehead, Aubrey Herbert, Brasted Chart, Charles Evelyn Pym, comments, Dardanelles, Foxwold, Gallipoli, Geoge Calderon: Edwardian Genius, George Calderon, Ian Hamilton, intercultural contact, Islam, Jack Pym, John Pym, Kittie Calderon, The Great War, Third Battle of Krithia, Turkish army, Violet Pym, World War I
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Guest Post: Sam2 on… ‘How to Typeset A Second Book’
The final act of Tarkovsky’s Andrei Rublev concerns a boy and a bell. In this hour-long conclusion to the film, the son of a deceased bellmaker persuades his village that the father bequeathed to him a secret bellmaking recipe. He … Continue reading
Posted in Modern parallels, Personal commentary, Uncategorized
Tagged Amazon, Amazon KDP, Andrei Rublev, Andrei Tarkovsky, biographies, Chris Johnson, Church Times, comments, George Calderon, George Calderon: Edwardian Genius, James Miles, John Polkinghorne, Kindle Direct Publishing, LibreOffice, OpenOffice, Patrick Miles, PDF, publishers, Sam&Sam, Sam1, Sam2, TeX, TeXWorks, typesetting, What Can We Hope For?
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Rochelle Townsend’s ‘Uncle Vanya’
In my introduction to these four posts about the ‘mystery’ Misses and Misters who feature in my biography of George Calderon and the world of Edwardian Anglo-Russian cultural relations, I said that after Michael Pursglove’s magnificent post about the ‘mysterious’ … Continue reading
Posted in Edwardian character, Edwardian English, Edwardian literature, Modern parallels, Personal commentary
Tagged Aldwych Theatre, Anton Chekhov, authorship, Chekhov on the British Stage, collaborators, comments, Constance Garnett, English premieres, George Calderon, Herbert Grimwood, Incorporated Stage Society, L.P. Hartley, Michael Pursglove, Rochelle Townsend, stage managers, translation, Uncle Vanya, Victoria & Albert Museum
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From the diary of a writer-publisher: 3
14 May I gather, from a reliable source, that access to Calderonia has been blocked in Russia (I nearly said ‘the Soviet Union’). This would explain why no Russian viewers have featured in the stats for months. One can only … Continue reading
Posted in Edwardian literature, Heroism and Adventure, Modern parallels, Personal commentary
Tagged Akala, Amazon, biographies, biography, British Council, Calderonia, Clays Ltd, comments, cyber warfare, Earlham, Edward Lear, eschatology, Gallipoli, George Calderon, George Calderon: Edwardian Genius, haiku, James Tait Black Prize, Jenny Uglow, John Dewey, John Polkinghorne, Kittie Calderon, Leonid Brezhnev, Marie Colvin, paradise, Percy Lubbock, plastic, pollution, ravens, Russia, Sam&Sam, Sam2, self-publishing, Shetland, Simon Cooke, The Great War, Third Battle of Krithia, Vladimir Putin, wokefulness, World War I, Yell
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Inestimable Russianist 3: Harvey Pitcher
(This series is timed to coincide with the 2019 Annual Conference of the British Association for Slavonic and East European Studies at Robinson College, Cambridge.) Hale and hearty in his eighty-third year, Harvey Pitcher is not only one of this … Continue reading
Posted in Edwardian character, Edwardian English, Modern parallels, Personal commentary
Tagged Academe, Anton Chekhov, BASEES, biographies, biography, comments, communication, Emma Dashwood, emotional networks, Ferdinand Mount, George Calderon, Glasgow University, governesses, Harvey Pitcher, John Dewey, Joint Services School of Linguists, lack of communication, Lady with the Little Dog, Leningrad, Michael Pursglove, Mikhail Bakhtin, Oxford University, Russia, Russianists, St Andrews University, The Smiths of Moscow, USSR
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Inestimable Russianist 2: John Dewey
(This series is timed to coincide with the 2019 Annual Conference of the British Association for Slavonic and East European Studies at Robinson College, Cambridge.) It is no exaggeration to say that John Dewey befriended Calderonia out of the blue — … Continue reading
Posted in Modern parallels, Personal commentary
Tagged Academe, Alexander Pushkin, Alexandrine, biographies, biography, Boris Yampolsky, Brimstone Press, choriamb, comments, Fedor Tiutchev, Fyodor Tyutchev, George Calderon, Glas, Harvey Pitcher, Irina Muravyova, John Dewey, John Dryden Prize, Ksenia Zhukova, Michael Pursglove, Mirror of the Soul: A Life of the Poet Tyutchev, prosody, publishers, Ruslan and Ludmila, Russian Studies, Stanley Mitchell, T.J. Binyon, The Bronze Horseman, Yevgeny Zamyatin
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Inestimable Russianist 1: Michael Pursglove
(This series is timed to coincide with the 2019 Annual Conference of the British Association for Slavonic and East European Studies held 12-14 April at Robinson College, Cambridge, where Sam&Sam will be promoting George Calderon: Edwardian Genius.) When Michael Pursglove … Continue reading
Posted in Edwardian English, Edwardian literature, Modern parallels, Personal commentary
Tagged A.B. Murphy, Alexander Pushkin, Alma Books, Andrei Voznesenskii, Andrew Assumption, Anna Karenina, Aylmer Maude, BASEES, comments, Constance Garnett, deaf community, Dmitrii Grigorovich, Fedor Dostoevskii, Fedor Tyutchev, George Calderon, Great Britain-Russia Society, Ivan Turgenev, Larissa Miller, Lev Tolstoy, Louise Maude, Michael Pursglove, Mikhail Lermontov, Moscow and Muscovites, Mrs Shapter, Petr Viazemskii, Professor Rose, publishers, Reading University, Robert Conquest, Robinson College, Russianists, translators, Vladimir Giliarovskii
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George’s thought for the day
Some time ago a reader asked me whether I thought George Calderon subscribed to Thomas Carlyle’s theory of the ‘great man’ in history. This theory was certainly popular with the Victorians and, as the reader pointed out, George’s extreme individualism … Continue reading
Posted in Edwardian character, Edwardian English, Edwardian literature, Modern parallels, Personal commentary
Tagged baptism, biography, bookmark, comments, cypher, George Calderon, great man, humanity, Jesus Christ, John Polkinghorne, John the Baptist, Kittie Calderon, library, manuscripts, original sin, religion, shorthand, sin, theology, Thomas Carlyle
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The Errata, Corrigenda and Addenda
George Calderon: Edwardian Genius has now been out for just over five months. I started ‘proofreading’ the book the moment I received it from Clays on 4 June 2018; it’s been ‘hoovered’ many times since. Now seems the right moment … Continue reading
Posted in Edwardian character, Edwardian English, Edwardian literature, Edwardian marriage, Heroism and Adventure, Modern parallels, Personal commentary
Tagged addenda, bibliography, biographies, biography, comments, corrections, corrigenda, editing, errata, formatting, George Calderon, George Calderon: Edwardian Genius, Index, indie publishing, John Pym, mistakes, proofreading, publishing, Sam&Sam, typography, typos
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Is all biography also autobiography?
As long-term followers will know, the above question worries me (in the canine sense). The reason my Introduction went through so many versions was that half of my test-readers thought there was too much of me in it and not enough … Continue reading
Posted in Heroism and Adventure, Modern parallels, Personal commentary
Tagged America, anthropology, autobiography, biographies, biography, cicadas, comments, Cyclops, expansionism, Fedor Dostoevskii, George Calderon, imperialism, Japan, Jizo, John Aubrey, Lafcadio Hearn, Meiji, militarism, nationalism, novels, pornography, Roger Pulvers, Ruth Scurr, The Dream of Lafcadio Hearn, The Unmaking of an American, Yakumo Koizumi
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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 →