When I started my deeper research for this biography in 2010, one of the things I did was trawl the Web for manuscripts of George’s that were up for sale. I found only one item, which we bought for the archive. (It was two unpublished letters from George to the editor of the Cambridge Magazine in 1912 following his tumultuous public appearance in Cambridge during the Coal Strike and the tour of his play The Fountain.)
I have regularly searched the Web since, but never found anything. Then, as readers of the blog will know, in March the truly amazing Katy George in Kent found a letter of Kittie’s amongst some items in a charity shop (see Katy’s Comment of 15 March and my post of 23 March). As if that were not enough, at the end of May Katy spotted a copy of George’s 1904 Dwala for sale through Abebooks, inscribed by Kittie and with a letter from her preserved inside it! It arrived from Tasmania only six days later. The book itself is very rare, and turned out to be a gift from Kittie to Frederick O’Brien, an American writer on the South Seas who had sent her two copies of his long, laudatory article on George’s Tahiti in the New York Times Book Review of 5 March 1922. She wrote to thank him for this.
Finally, a fortnight ago, my blogmaster came across this item for sale on a website for theatrical memorabilia:
Click image to enlarge.
It is inscribed by Kittie on the back in pencil: A Christmas card drawn by G.C. to try and persuade my mother to come down to Christmas dinner — our first Christmas at Heathland Lodge 1901 Hampstead.
The dog greeting Mrs Hamilton on the red carpet is Jones (see the photograph of Kittie in the Calderonia biographies). The three minions on the left are carrying bowls of punch. The man with large raised right arm and left hand holding a giant glass is George, the woman with an exaggerated bun of hair is Kittie, and the short figure between them is perhaps George’s mother Clara. The couplet bottom right reads:
NONE BUT THE BRAVE DESERVE THE FARE:
BE BRAVE TODAY: COME DOWN THE STAIR.
Left: Mary Hamilton in 1891; Right: her daughter Kittie, c. 1910
This cartoon strikes me as one of the funniest George ever drew. Lest anyone think, in the aggrieved manner of 2015, that it is meant to be unkind or satirical, let me assure them at once that it is not. It is genuinely intended as an act of caring and humorous persuasion. Mrs Hamilton (1825-1906) got on extremely well with George, once her daughter was married to him and he had a job. He was the favoured person for lifting her in bed and making her laugh. Her health was very bad for the last five years of her life, and unfortunately she died whilst George was on his way back from Tahiti.
My guess is that this cartoon did persuade Mrs Hamilton to come downstairs for Kittie and George’s first Christmas dinner in their new home — and I’ll never complain about the Internet again!
Next entry: Another Calderon signs up
Related
Basic form of the Calderon coat of arms
Christmas 1901 Cartoon by George Calderon
Colonel Sir Walter Coote Hedley c. 1920
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?
The entrance to Fort Brockhurst (picture from Britain’s Past)
Unpublished watercolour by George Calderon, Tahiti 1906
George and Kittie Calderon 1905
Book sent to George Calderon in Russia by his mother, Christmas 1895.
Patrick Miles in his summer house, 11 December 2016
George Calderon c.1901
Sir Richard Vincent Sutton c. 1913
Captain of the 11
A happy memory of Trinity College: undergraduates breakfast together in Downy V. Green, p. 77.
Michel and Vera Fokine in “Scheherazade”, 1914 (The Music And Theatre Library of Sweden, creative commons)
Jean Ryckaert, May 1916.
Monarch Butterfly Madeira
George Calderon, 1912
Frontis piece by Frank Calderon
…then three come along at once
When I started my deeper research for this biography in 2010, one of the things I did was trawl the Web for manuscripts of George’s that were up for sale. I found only one item, which we bought for the archive. (It was two unpublished letters from George to the editor of the Cambridge Magazine in 1912 following his tumultuous public appearance in Cambridge during the Coal Strike and the tour of his play The Fountain.)
I have regularly searched the Web since, but never found anything. Then, as readers of the blog will know, in March the truly amazing Katy George in Kent found a letter of Kittie’s amongst some items in a charity shop (see Katy’s Comment of 15 March and my post of 23 March). As if that were not enough, at the end of May Katy spotted a copy of George’s 1904 Dwala for sale through Abebooks, inscribed by Kittie and with a letter from her preserved inside it! It arrived from Tasmania only six days later. The book itself is very rare, and turned out to be a gift from Kittie to Frederick O’Brien, an American writer on the South Seas who had sent her two copies of his long, laudatory article on George’s Tahiti in the New York Times Book Review of 5 March 1922. She wrote to thank him for this.
Finally, a fortnight ago, my blogmaster came across this item for sale on a website for theatrical memorabilia:
Click image to enlarge.
It is inscribed by Kittie on the back in pencil: A Christmas card drawn by G.C. to try and persuade my mother to come down to Christmas dinner — our first Christmas at Heathland Lodge 1901 Hampstead.
The dog greeting Mrs Hamilton on the red carpet is Jones (see the photograph of Kittie in the Calderonia biographies). The three minions on the left are carrying bowls of punch. The man with large raised right arm and left hand holding a giant glass is George, the woman with an exaggerated bun of hair is Kittie, and the short figure between them is perhaps George’s mother Clara. The couplet bottom right reads:
NONE BUT THE BRAVE DESERVE THE FARE:
BE BRAVE TODAY: COME DOWN THE STAIR.
Left: Mary Hamilton in 1891; Right: her daughter Kittie, c. 1910
This cartoon strikes me as one of the funniest George ever drew. Lest anyone think, in the aggrieved manner of 2015, that it is meant to be unkind or satirical, let me assure them at once that it is not. It is genuinely intended as an act of caring and humorous persuasion. Mrs Hamilton (1825-1906) got on extremely well with George, once her daughter was married to him and he had a job. He was the favoured person for lifting her in bed and making her laugh. Her health was very bad for the last five years of her life, and unfortunately she died whilst George was on his way back from Tahiti.
My guess is that this cartoon did persuade Mrs Hamilton to come downstairs for Kittie and George’s first Christmas dinner in their new home — and I’ll never complain about the Internet again!
Next entry: Another Calderon signs up
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