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)
Colonel Sir Walter Coote Hedley c. 1920
Sir Richard Vincent Sutton c. 1913
K.N. Das Gupta and Margaret Mitchell in an Indian Dramatic Society production of The Maharani of Arakan, 1913?
George Calderon, 1912
Captain of the 11
Michel and Vera Fokine in “Scheherazade”, 1914 (The Music And Theatre Library of Sweden, creative commons)
Christmas 1901 Cartoon by George Calderon
Basic form of the Calderon coat of arms
The entrance to Fort Brockhurst (picture from Britain’s Past)
George Calderon c.1901
A happy memory of Trinity College: undergraduates breakfast together in Downy V. Green, p. 77.
Book sent to George Calderon in Russia by his mother, Christmas 1895.
Monarch Butterfly Madeira
Frontis piece by Frank Calderon
Unpublished watercolour by George Calderon, Tahiti 1906
Jean Ryckaert, May 1916.
George and Kittie Calderon 1905Recent 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: St Petersburg
The magnificent Mary Ann
Long-term followers of Calderonia will recall that I had always had a theory that the person who taught George to speak Russian credibly before he set out for St Petersburg in 1895 was a ‘Mrs Shapter’, but in my biography … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged Alexander I, Andrew Jones, Anton Chekhov, biographies, biography, Camille Silvy, Clara Calderon, Constance Garnett, Evan Hodgson, Exeter, Francke family, George Calderon, George Calderon: Edwardian Genius, Glasgow Repertory Theatre, Harry Leeke Gibbs, Harvey Pitcher, John Hodgson, John Shapter, Kittie Calderon, Laurence Binyon, Manya Guseva, Mary Ann Shapter, Mary Gibbs Shapter, Michael Pursglove, Mrs Shapter, Museum of the Home, National Portrait Gallery, Nicholas I, Olga Novikoff, oracy, P.H. Calderon, Russia, Sally Jones, silver, sketchbooks, St John's Wood Clique, St Petersburg, The Seagull, The Smiths of Moscow, theatre, Thomas Shapter, toddy ladle, Whishaw family, Yeames family
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Christmas in St Petersburg, 1895
St Petersburg, 27 December 1895 (N.S.) English Christmas Evening I spent at the Wildings: of the guests were Mr and Mrs Alfred Whishaw, Dick Whishaw (18) and Miss blank Whishaw (say 19); James Whishaw (V.C., not the cross but Vice … Continue reading
Posted in Edwardian character, Edwardian English, Edwardian literature, Personal commentary
Tagged Alfred Whishaw, charades, Charlie Fletcher, Christmas, Clumps, Dick Whishaw, Francke family, George Calderon, icehills, James Whishaw, Julian Calendar, methylated spirits, Miss Whishaw, Mrs Alfred Whishaw, Philip Hermogenes Calderon, plum pudding, skating, St Petersburg, Trinity College Oxford, Turkey, Wylie family
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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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The ‘mysterious’ Mrs Shapter no more
You have a hunch, it proves right, and your rejoicing and self-satisfaction know no bounds… Then you sit back and contemplate the chain of circumstances that led to it being ‘proven right’, and you realise the links were so fortuitous, … Continue reading
Posted in Personal commentary
Tagged Alexander I, Amiens, biographies, biography, British Museum, Chantrey Bequest, Clara Calderon, comments, Dawlish, Exeter, George Calderon, George Calderon: Edwardian Genius, Harry Leeke Gibbs, Ivan Nestor Schnurmann, John Shapter, Mary Ann Angliss, Mary Ann Jane Shapter, Mary Gibbs Shapter, Michael Pursglove, Michael Welch, Miss Shapter, Mrs Shapter, Nicholas I, P.H. Calderon, Royal Academy, Rugby School, Russia, Russian language, St Elizabeth of Hungary's Great Act of Renunciation, St Petersburg, Thomas Shapter
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Aleksei Remizov: the Imp has landed!
On 23 April 1914 Bertram Christian, of the publishers James Nisbet & Co. Ltd, wrote to George Calderon suggesting that he produce for them a volume of stories by the Russian writer Aleksei Remizov (1877-1957). There had been a glowing … Continue reading
Posted in Edwardian literature, Modern parallels, Personal commentary
Tagged Aleksei Remizov, Andrei Belyi, Anton Chekhov, Bertram Christian, biography, Brian Murphy, Columbia University Press, comments, Demon Feasts, fairy tales, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, George Calderon, Il'ia Tolstoi, James Nisbet & Co. Ltd, kenosis, Lev Tolstoi, Marakulin, Michel Fokine, modernism, Nikolai Gogol, Roger Keys, Russian Orthodoxy, Sisters of the Cross, St Petersburg, Stephen Graham, strastoterpets, Tahiti, Times Literary Supplement
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Russia (concluded)
A hundred years ago today Red Guards began occupying key installations in St Petersburg. By early tomorrow morning the Winter Palace had been infiltrated and the Provisional Government arrested. The Bolsheviks, a party of fanatical, fascistic Utopians, subsequently seized power … Continue reading
Posted in Edwardian character, Modern parallels, Personal commentary
Tagged Alexander Navalny, Andrei Amal'rik, biographies, biography, Bolshevik coup, Bolshevik Party, Bolsheviks, Cheka, comments, Communism, Democratic Movement, dissidents, Duma, Edmund Burke, emigration, genocide, George Calderon, German Federal Republic, Irish Potato Famine, John Hamilton, KGB, Kittie Calderon, Konstantin Pobedonostsev, Moskovskii Komsomolets, Nadezhda Mandel'shtam, nationalism, paranoia, Progress Party, Red Guards, Russian Revolution, secret police, St Petersburg, United Russia Party, Vladimir Putin, Winter Palace
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Russia (continued)
Chapter four of my biography, ‘Who Had He Been?’, relates amongst other things what George did in Russia between 12 October 1895 and the summer of 1897. I think it will be a revelation to a lot of people. It … Continue reading
Posted in Edwardian character, Heroism and Adventure, Modern parallels, Personal commentary, Uncategorized
Tagged Alexander III, Anton Chekhov, ARLS, Armistice Festival, biographies, biography, Clara Calderon, comments, Friedrich Nietzsche, G.W.F. Hegel, George Calderon, George Orwell, Joseph Stalin, Khodynka Field, Kittie Calderon, Konstantin Pobedonostsev, Lev Tolstoi, Monthly Review, Moscow, Nicholas II, Olga Novikoff, Pall Mall Gazette, Percy Lubbock, Petr Kropotkin, Sergei Stepniak-Kravchinskii, St Petersburg, Standard, The Great War, Vladimir Putin, W.T. Stead, World War I, Ypres
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A terrific find
Please read Katy George’s and my Comments for the background to this letter, which Katy discovered recently amongst some papers of Mrs Raikes in a charity shop in Deal, Kent. New letters of Kittie Calderon’s are as rare as new … Continue reading
Posted in Edwardian literature, Edwardian marriage, Personal commentary
Tagged Alexander Pushkin, Captain Charles Evelyn Pym, Downton Abbey, Evey Pym, Evgenii Onegin, Foxwold, George Calderon, Gladys Raikes, Highclere, Johnnie Pym, Katy George, Kittie Calderon, Oxford, Percy Lubbock, St Hilda's Hall, St Petersburg, Tom Raikes, Trinity College Oxford, Violet Pym, William Rothenstein
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Fit for purpose, then?
Some of my friends feel that I suffer from Low Frustration Tolerance (‘Foot Stuck on Indignation Pedal’, one calls it). They may be right, but I think Karl Popper would agree with me that you can’t improve the design of … Continue reading →