Tag Archives: Tahiti

Watch this Space

Posted on August 15, 2015 by Patrick Miles

16/8/15. If you haven’t seen the latest cracker of a Comment from Clare Hopkins, I recommend that you do (top right)…and contribute to the discussion! I have been away for a week. This necessitated carting the manuscript with me and a … Continue reading →

Posted in Personal commentary | Tagged biographies, biography, Clare Hopkins, comments, George Calderon, Kittie Calderon, Percy Lubbock, publishers, Tahiti | Leave a comment

30 July 1915: ‘Ends’

Posted on July 30, 2015 by Patrick Miles

It does not seem exactly a year since the small boys Jack and Roly Pym ran across from their holiday home at Seaview on the Isle of Wight to greet George Calderon, a kind of uncle to them, who had … Continue reading →

Posted in Edwardian marriage, Personal commentary | Tagged 'real time', Anton Chekhov, Ashford, biographies, biography, Captain Charles Evelyn Pym, Carl Jung, Clare Hopkins, comments, Dardanelles, Derwent May, Elizabeth Ellis, Gallipoli, George Calderon, Harvey Pitcher, Isle of Wight, Jack Pym, James Muckle, John Dewey, John Pym, Johnnie Pym, King's Own Scottish Borderers, Kittie Calderon, Louisa Scherchen, Michael Welch, Nina Astley, Nina Corbet, Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry, Percy Lubbock, Peter Hart, Roly Pym, Sam Evans, Seaview, Sheet, Tahiti, The Great War, Third Battle of Krithia, Violet Pym, White Raven, World War I, Ypres | 8 Comments

George Calderon: a tribute

Posted on June 7, 2015 by Patrick Miles

As I have written before, the question everyone asks me is: ‘Who is George Calderon?’ Perhaps unconsciously, some people seem to intonate this as a rhetorical question implying: ‘Why are you spending years of your life writing about a person … Continue reading →

Posted in Edwardian character, Edwardian literature, Heroism and Adventure, Personal commentary | Tagged 'real time', Aldous Huxley, Anton Chekhov, Aylmer Maude, Bernard Pares, biographies, biography, comments, Constance Garnett, Dardanelles, Gallipoli, George Calderon, George Orwell, Henry Newbolt, Julia Bush, Khodynka, Kittie Calderon, Leonid Andreyev, Lev Tolstoy, Lewis Carroll, Maksim Gorky, Martin Shaw, Maurice Baring, Michael Frayn, Michel Fokine, Nicholas II, Oxford, Paul Gauguin, Percy Lubbock, Rupert Brooke, Sergei Rakhmaninov, Stephen Graham, Tahiti, The Great War, Virginia Woolf, Vladimir Korolenko, World War I | 1 Comment

George Calderon’s ‘magnum opus’

Posted on April 27, 2015 by Patrick Miles

27 April 1915 was a Tuesday, so George was presumably back at Fort Brockhurst, having returned from weekend leave yesterday. The only other literary work that he may have tinkered with when he was home at weekends was a book … Continue reading →

Posted in Edwardian literature, Personal commentary | Tagged anthropology, comments, Demon Feasts, folklore, Fort Brockhurst, Fritz Epstein, George Calderon, Isabel Fry, James Frazer, Paul Boyer, Percy Lubbock, Simon Franklin, Tahiti, Ted Hughes, The Golden Bough, The Great War, William Blake, World War I | Leave a comment

St George’s Day 1915

Posted on April 23, 2015 by Patrick Miles

This morning the weather in the Aegean was fine and clear. Admiral de Robeck therefore ordered the smaller craft in the harbour of Mudros to move to Tenedos — the first step towards assembling the fleet for landings at Gallipoli … Continue reading →

Posted in Edwardian literature | Tagged Admiral John de Robeck, Dardanelles, Francis Newbolt, Gallipoli, George Calderon, Lemnos, Lithuania, Mudros, Rupert Brooke, Sir Henry Newbolt, Skyros, St George's Day, Tahiti, Tenedos, The Great War, World War I, Ypres | Leave a comment

Tahiti: The book’s reception (1921)

Posted on March 21, 2015 by Patrick Miles

Katy George’s discovery of Kittie’s letter to Gladys Raikes of 31 March 1923 (see Comments and my post this coming Monday), in which Kittie talks about Percy Lubbock’s ‘Life’ of George, has reminded me that Percy also played a vital … Continue reading →

Posted in Edwardian literature | Tagged biography, Constance Astley, Constance Sutton, George Calderon, Grant Richards, Isabel Fry, Kittie Calderon, Laurence Binyon, Mrs Stewart of Torquay, Nina Astley, Nina Corbet, Percy Lubbock, Tahiti, The Great War, World War I | Leave a comment

Tahiti: an imagined world?

Posted on March 14, 2015 by Patrick Miles

It must have taken great self-control for George to concentrate on making a full synopsis of his book Tahiti when he was home on weekend leave, rather than simply keep writing it. But it was certainly the most rational approach. … Continue reading →

Posted in Edwardian literature, Heroism and Adventure, Personal commentary | Tagged biography, George Calderon, Kittie Calderon, Manu, Moscow, Paul Gauguin, Soviet Union, Tahiti, Tahitian Women with Mango Blossoms, The Great War, World War I | Leave a comment

A biographer in-spires

Posted on March 6, 2015 by Patrick Miles

I have just read a long article by Ruth Scurr, ‘Lives, some briefer than others’, in last Saturday’s Guardian Review (28 February), which I thoroughly recommend to followers if they can get it, along with a piece by Stuart Kelly, ‘Enter … Continue reading →

Posted in Personal commentary | Tagged Anton Chekhov, biographies, biography, Daniel Defoe, Donald Rayfield, Fort Brockhurst, George Calderon, Helen MacDonald, John Aubrey, Kittie Calderon, Michael Holroyd, Park Honan, Percy Lubbock, Robert Graves, Ruth Scurr, Stuart Kelly, T.S. Eliot, Tahiti, The Brave Little Tailor, TLS, TLS blog | Leave a comment

‘Le Bain de Loti’

Posted on March 1, 2015 by Patrick Miles

Both George and the Russian Byzantinist Alexander Vasilieff (who accompanied him at the beginning of his Tahitian visit) greatly admired Le Mariage de Loti, the autobiographical novel by Julien Viaud published in 1880. One of the most atmospheric passages in the … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Alexander Vasilieff, Fautaua waterfall, George Calderon, Julien Viaud, Le Mariage de Loti, Papeete, Pierre Loti, Rarahu, Spotted Hog, Tahiri-i-te-rai, Tahiti | Leave a comment

The return to Tahiti

Posted on February 27, 2015 by Patrick Miles

Calderon arrived in London from Tahiti on 30 October 1906 and started writing his book about the island in November 1907. However, he soon gave it up to concentrate on his plays The Fountain and Cromwell: Mall o’Monks. Meanwhile, as Kittie put … Continue reading →

Posted in Edwardian literature, Heroism and Adventure, Personal commentary | Tagged comments, Gallipoli, George Calderon, Grant Richards, Kittie Calderon, Marae, Tahiti, The Great War, watercolours, William Caine, World War I, Ypres | Leave a comment

‘Black Pot’ and black holes

Posted on February 25, 2015 by Patrick Miles

For the first two years that I was writing George Calderon’s biography, its working title was Black Pot: The Mysterious Life of George Calderon. The reason for this was not just that several people before me had failed to find significantly … Continue reading →

Posted in Edwardian character, Edwardian literature, Personal commentary | Tagged biographies, biography, Brothers Grimm, Charles Frohman, comments, Gallipoli, George Calderon, Kum Kale, Mabel Dearmer, Martin Shaw, Percy Lubbock, Peter Pan, Sedd el Bahr, Tahiti, The Brave Little Tailor, The Great War, The Lamp, William Caine, World War I | Leave a comment

(Commentary)

Posted on January 3, 2015 by Patrick Miles

Staggered by flu, I did not have the energy to add any comments to my post of George’s New Year letter to William Rothenstein; but I will offer a few points now. William Rothenstein is an extremely interesting figure. He … Continue reading →

Posted in Edwardian marriage, Personal commentary | Tagged Anton Chekhov, Augustus John, comments, George Calderon, Grant Richards, Harold Nicolson, Il'ia Tolstoi, Kittie Calderon, military interpreters, Percy Lubbock, Tahiti, The Great War, Vita Sackville-West, William Rothenstein, World War I, Ypres | 2 Comments

The next week

Posted on December 18, 2014 by Patrick Miles

There is no documentary evidence for what George did between 17 and 23 December 1914, when he and Kittie left for what she described as ‘a delightful Christmas at Foxwold [Brasted, Kent] with the Pyms’. But we can be pretty … Continue reading →

Posted in Edwardian literature | Tagged Belgium, comments, Foxwold, Francis Newbolt, George Calderon, Henry Newbolt, Nonnebosschen, Oxfirdshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry, Sir Coote Hedley, Tahiti, The Great War, World War I, Ypres | Leave a comment

23 October 1914

Posted on October 23, 2014 by Patrick Miles

Today George wrote to Kittie from Dunkirk. It was his first letter to her for six days. ‘Dearest Mrs P.,’ he began, ‘I haven’t written, because there was nothing very gay to say.’ (See my posts of 29 August, 1 … Continue reading →

Posted in Personal commentary | Tagged Belgium, Dunkirk, George Calderon, gout, haematuria, Kittie Calderon, Passchendaele, Royal Horse Guards, Sir Richard Sutton, Tahiti, Taravao, The Blues, The Great War, World War I, Zandvoorde | Leave a comment

Pause and enigma

Posted on October 11, 2014 by Patrick Miles

The Calderon quotations that feature in my preceding two posts come from a letter George wrote to Kittie today, 11 October 1914, which was a Sunday. This was now the pattern: every few days he would write her a long … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Battle of Ypres, Belgium, Edwin Anthony Calderon, General Register Office, George Calderon, Henry Calderon, Kittie Calderon, Royal Horse Guards, Saba Calderon, Tahiti, The Blues, The Great War, World War I | Leave a comment

20 September 1914

Posted on September 20, 2014 by Patrick Miles

Calderon had only been separated from Kittie three days, but was missing her. Yesterday was a Saturday. My servant wanted to go up to see his wife; I thought of my old ‘ooman with a tearful sigh, and told him … Continue reading →