Patrick Miles in his summer house, 11 December 2016
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?
Frontis piece by Frank Calderon
George and Kittie Calderon 1905
Book sent to George Calderon in Russia by his mother, Christmas 1895.
Michel and Vera Fokine in “Scheherazade”, 1914 (The Music And Theatre Library of Sweden, creative commons)
Jean Ryckaert, May 1916.
A happy memory of Trinity College: undergraduates breakfast together in Downy V. Green, p. 77.
Sir Richard Vincent Sutton c. 1913
Unpublished watercolour by George Calderon, Tahiti 1906
Basic form of the Calderon coat of arms
George Calderon c.1901
Colonel Sir Walter Coote Hedley c. 1920
The entrance to Fort Brockhurst (picture from Britain’s Past)
George Calderon, 1912
Captain of the 11
Monarch Butterfly Madeira
Christmas 1901 Cartoon by George CalderonRecent 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)
Tag Archives: biographies
A new photograph of George Calderon
Whilst sorting his family papers, Mr John Pym recently found the photograph below, which undoubtedly shows George Calderon on the right. It is a contact print of a photograph, obviously not in sharp focus, which Mr Pym and I believe … Continue reading
Posted in Edwardian character, Edwardian literature, Personal commentary
Tagged biographies, biography, boaters, Catherine Lubbock, Charles Evelyn Pym, comments, Emmetts, Evey Pym, Foxwold, George Calderon, George Calderon: Edwardian Genius, Harvard University, Houghton Library, identification, Jane Hannah Backhouse Pym, Jim Corbet, John Pym, Johnnie Pym, Kittie Calderon, Lubbock family, Massachusetts, Nina Corbet, Violet Pym, visitors books, Weigh-in Book
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From the diary of a writer-publisher: 15
2 June I have never known the cow parsley so high in front of my shed… 11 June We have completed our ‘hardcopy marketing’ for Edna’s Diary. 130 free copies have gone out to stroke clubs, NHS speech and language therapy … Continue reading
Posted in Personal commentary
Tagged ADC Theatre, Anton Chekhov, aphasia, As You Like It, biographies, comments, copyright, cow parsley, Cymbeline, Edna's Diary, Hesperus Press, Lady Chatterley's Lover, marketing, Melanie Derbyshire, musicals, NHS, Sasha Regan, Shaftesbury Theatre, sheds, social media, Stroke Association UK, Sylvia Krystel
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Guest Post: Laurence Brockliss, ‘George Calderon and the Demographic Revolution’
George Calderon married Kittie shortly before his thirty-second birthday. For a professional man at the turn of the twentieth century, this was not an uncommon age to wed. For the last ten years I have been leading a cross-generational study … Continue reading
Posted in Edwardian character, Edwardian literature, Edwardian marriage, Modern parallels, Personal commentary
Tagged Aileen Alison Furse, Archie Ripley, Baines dynasty, biographies, birth rate, Cambridge Scool of Historical Demography, Charlotte Talbot, Clara Calderon, Demographic Revolution, Edward Baines Junior, Edward Baines Senior, Edward VII, Elizabeth Graham, George Armand Furse, George Calderon, George Gissing, Gonville and Caius College, grammar schools, Hazel Louisa Furse, Herbert Stanhope Baines, infant mortality, J.A. Banks, Jim Corbet, John William Baines, Kim Philby, Kittie Calderon, Leeds, Leeds Mercury, Liberal Party, marriage, New Grub Street, Nina Astley, Nina Corbet, professional class, prosopography, prostitution, public schools, Sir Roland James Corbet, The Great War, Victorian professions, Wilfred Owen, William Jackson, World War I
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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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‘Spectator’
SAVE IT FOR THE (AMERICAN) NATION! How British archives fail us Patrick Miles It was a biographer’s dream. For decades Russianists had searched in vain for the archive of George Calderon, top Edwardian Slavist and the man who brought Chekhov’s … Continue reading
Posted in Edwardian literature, Personal commentary
Tagged American archives, Anton Chekhov, archivists, attics, auction houses, bequests, Bernard Quaritch Ltd, Bertram Rota Ltd, biographies, biography, British archives, Cambridge University Library, celebrity, comments, cultural heritage, dilettantism, George Calderon, George Calderon: Edwardian Genius, Gertrude Bell, Harold Pinter, Harvard University, Jane Austen, Joseph Conrad, Kittie Calderon, learned helplessness, media image, patrimony, PR, research value, Rupert Brooke, The Bodleian Library, The British Library, The Calderon Papers, The Houghton Library, The Spectator, The Watsons, V. Pokrovskii, vultures, Wendy Cope
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‘Thunderer’
Curate your own stuff – British archives can’t cope PATRICK MILES Thinking of depositing your family papers in a public archive? Be prepared for nobody to answer your emails, promises to be broken, cataloguing never to happen, and to discover … Continue reading
Posted in Edwardian character, Edwardian literature, Heroism and Adventure, Personal commentary
Tagged accountants, Anton Chekhov, archives, archivists, biographies, biography, British archives, cataloguing, celebrity, collecting, comments, conferences, conservation, curation, Dardanelles, exhibitions, funding, Gallipoli, George Calderon, George Calderon: Edwardian Genius, Harold Pinter, Jane Austen, Less Process, Martin Shaw, More Product, PR consultants, The British Library, The Great War, The Watsons, Third Battle of Krithia, United States of America, Wendy Cope, World War I, Ypres
2 Comments
‘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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Weighty Calderonian matters
The above is described in an auction catalogue of 2001 as ‘A Victorian set of jockey scales by Youngs of Bear Street, London WC on oak stand with spiral-turned supports. Width 3ft’. The auction in question was of ‘The Residual Contents … Continue reading
Posted in Edwardian character, Edwardian English, Edwardian literature, Edwardian marriage, Personal commentary
Tagged A Room with a View, Anstey Guthrie, biographies, biography, body weight, Boulogne, Catherine Lubbock, Charles Evelyn Pym, Christopher Tebb, comments, Daniel Day Lewis, Dr Albert Tebb, E.M. Forster, Emmetts, Foxwold, Frederic Lubbock, George Calderon, height, Horace Pym, John Pym, Kittie Calderon, R. Ruthven Pym, Violet Pym, visitors books, weighing machine, weighing machines, Windy Corner
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Bloggering on!
It is such a long time since I blogged, that followers would be excused for forgetting why the previous post has been up for five weeks. The reason is that we have been preparing for Sam&Sam’s Moscow-Cambridge stall at the … Continue reading
Posted in Personal commentary
Tagged BASEES Conference, biographies, comments, coronavirus, COVID-19, George Calderon, George Calderon: Edwardian Genius, Harvey Pitcher, John Polkinghorne, marketing, Moscow, pandemics, publishing, Robinson College, Russianists, sales, Sam&Sam, Slavists, What Can We Hope For?
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From the diary of a writer-publisher: 6
6 December Our post office is inside the local supermarket, and next to the queue is a stand with all the British newspapers. In an Orwellian spirit of studying what people across the whole political spectrum are thinking, I occasionally … Continue reading
Posted in Personal commentary
Tagged agnosticism, Amazon, And now the coffin has been lowered, biographies, biography, birds, Calderonia, death, East-West Review, eschatology, Fedor Tiutchev, Four Funerals and a Tyutchev Poem, I grob opushchen uz v mogilu, John Dewey, Labour Party, Lutheranism, Mirror of the Soul: A Life of the Poet Tyutchev, Morning Star, obituary, Protestantism, Russianists, self-publishing, translation
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From the diary of a writer-publisher: 5
2 October I arrived in St Andrews as the guest of the best owner of a private archive in Britain, who had unfailingly facilitated and nurtured my work on George’s biography over a period of twenty years, and without whom … Continue reading
Posted in Edwardian character, Edwardian literature, Edwardian marriage, Personal commentary
Tagged 'Gone with a Basilisk', Acton Reynald, Anton Chekhov, biographies, biography, Brexit, Cambridge Chekhov Company, Cambridge Festival, comments, Cromwell: Mall o' Monks, Edinburgh Festival, George Calderon, George Calderon: Edwardian Genius, Jim Corbet, Kittie Calderon, Lesbia Corbet, Manya Ross, Nina Corbet, Pall Mall Gazette, Peter the Great, Queen Victoria, Russia, Samuel Hynes, Sir Walter Corbet, St Andrews, St Petersburg, Susan de Guardiola, The Cherry Orchard, The Edwardian Turn of Mind
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A year of promise
A very happy new year to all Calderonia’s subscribers and viewers! Thank you for staying with us through 2021, which was our eighth calendar year, and I can promise you at least another year of posts from me and my … Continue reading →