Frontis piece by Frank Calderon
Monarch Butterfly Madeira
George Calderon, 1912
Unpublished watercolour by George Calderon, Tahiti 1906
K.N. Das Gupta and Margaret Mitchell in an Indian Dramatic Society production of The Maharani of Arakan, 1913?
George Calderon c.1901
Captain of the 11
Book sent to George Calderon in Russia by his mother, Christmas 1895.
Colonel Sir Walter Coote Hedley c. 1920
Sir Richard Vincent Sutton c. 1913
Jean Ryckaert, May 1916.
The entrance to Fort Brockhurst (picture from Britain’s Past)
Michel and Vera Fokine in “Scheherazade”, 1914 (The Music And Theatre Library of Sweden, creative commons)
George and Kittie Calderon 1905
Patrick Miles in his summer house, 11 December 2016
A happy memory of Trinity College: undergraduates breakfast together in Downy V. Green, p. 77.
Christmas 1901 Cartoon by George Calderon
Figure from Gauguin’s 1899 painting ‘Tahitian Women with Mango Blossoms’ (left); George Calderon’s pencil sketch ‘Manu’ (right)
Basic form of the Calderon coat of armsRecent 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: William Caine
How would I write it now?
Many authors never re-read their own books. One can understand why. Some must feel that it’s not necessary as it can’t change anything (unless the book is about to have an ‘improved’ edition). Others, like George Orwell apparently, simply don’t … Continue reading
Posted in Edwardian character, Edwardian English, Edwardian literature, Edwardian marriage, Heroism and Adventure, Personal commentary
Tagged 'real time', Archie Ripley, Ashford, biographies, biography, Clare Hopkins, commemoration, comments, Corbet family, Earlham, future biographer, George Calderon, George Calderon: Edwardian Genius, Gerge Orwell, Harvard University, Houghton Library, Kent, Kittie Calderon, Mrs Shapta, Nina Corbet, Percy Lubbock, Professor Rose, publishers, Sam&Sam, The Brave Little Tailor, The Great War, Third Battle of Krithia, William Caine, World War I, Ypres
Leave a comment
Explanatory notes to ‘Thunderer’
I give here some of the facts from my and my team’s experience that lie behind statements I made in the preceding post, whilst preserving the anonymity of most of the offending institutions because I think to name them would … Continue reading
Posted in Edwardian literature, Heroism and Adventure, Personal commentary
Tagged Aleksandr Anikst, Anglo-Soviet Colloquium 'Chekhov on the British Stage', Anna Sica, Anton Chekhov, archival managers, archive donations, archive sales, Bernard Quaritch Ltd, British archives, Cambridge Modern and Medieval Languages Faculty Library, Cambridge Slavonic Library, Cambridge University Library, cataloguing, Chekhov Centenary Medal, collecting, comments, communication, conservation, customer care, Eleonora Duse, Elizabeth Hill, Gallipoli, George Calderon, Jane Austen, Lucjan Lewitter, Martin Shaw, Mikhail Gorbachev, Murray Edwards College, New Hall, Oleg Efremov, Ray Scrivens, Sotheby's, Special Collections, The Bodleian Library, The Brave Little Tailor, The British Library, The Great War, The Watsons, V. Pokrovskii, William Caine, World War I
Leave a comment
A letter to the ‘Manchester Guardian’, 12 May 1919
Sir, — The recent notice in the “Times” of George Calderon’s death in battle on Gallipoli tells his friends that they may hope no longer. To us the loss is inexpressible. That which the theatre has suffered cannot, of course, … Continue reading
Posted in Edwardian character, Edwardian English, Edwardian literature, Heroism and Adventure, Personal commentary
Tagged Annie Horniman, comments, Dardanelles, Gaiety Theatre Manchester, Gallipoli, George Calderon, Manchester Guardian, Manchester Repertory Company, military interpreters, obituaries, Percy Lubbock, Royal Horse Guards, The Blues, The Great War, The Times, Third Battle of Krithia, William Caine, World War I, Ypres
Leave a comment
Percy Lubbock: ‘Esoteric and intimate portraiture’
One of Ruth Scurr’s aims in John Aubrey: My Own Life was to ‘produce a portrait’ of Aubrey, but naturally she did not write it in the biographical genre known as ‘literary portrait’. This genre seems to have grown out … Continue reading
Posted in Edwardian character, Edwardian English, Edwardian literature, Edwardian marriage, Heroism and Adventure, Modern parallels, Personal commentary
Tagged Archie Ripley, biographies, biography, character, comments, Earlham, empathy, George Calderon, Golden Square, Henry James, John Aubrey, John Masefield, Katy George, Kittie Calderon, literary portraits, Lytton Strachey, Marcel Proust, Mary Cholmondeley, Percy Lubbock, Piers Brendon, Ruth Scurr, William Caine
Leave a comment
Future biographers of George Calderon…
Even at this late stage, ‘things keep coming up’. It took me, as predicted, two pretty full days to input to the text of my biography (167,000 words) the 1000+ corrections and revisions that emerged from my two complete readings … Continue reading
Posted in Edwardian character, Edwardian English, Edwardian literature, Edwardian marriage, Modern parallels, Personal commentary
Tagged Anton Chekhov, biographies, biography, British Library, Christianity, comments, Dardanelles, EPMOS, Gallipoli, George Calderon, Grant Richards, Humanism, Kittie Calderon, Kropotkin, Laurence Binyon, Lydia Yavorskaya, Paul Boyer, Percy Lubbock, Petr Kropotkin, Spinoza, Tahiti, Taoism, The Brave Little Tailor, The Great War, theism, Third Battle of Krithia, William Caine, World War I
2 Comments
Guest post: John Pym, ‘A bit of fun with Calderon’
On 7 May 2016 Patrick Miles wrote a post on George Calderon and William Caine’s pantomime The Brave Little Tailor in which he reproduced the cover of the published version (1923) and also Caine’s Preface – the first paragraph of … Continue reading
Posted in Edwardian character, Edwardian English, Edwardian literature, Heroism and Adventure, Personal commentary
Tagged Andrew Lang, Anstey Guthrie, biographies, biography, Burglar Bill, Captain Charles Evelyn Pym, Charles Dickens, Cinderella: An Ibsen Pantomime, comments, Emmetts, F. Anstey, Foxwold, fun, George Calderon, Horace Pym, John Pym, Julian Pym, Kittie Calderon, The boy who fought for England, The Brave Little Tailor, Victorian humour, Violet Pym, William Caine
5 Comments
The Brave Little Tailor
7/5/16. The good news is that I have finished my fundamental revision of the biography. It can rest for a few weeks until I give it the final slow, close read. I turn now to writing the Introduction. These things … Continue reading
Posted in Edwardian character, Edwardian literature, Edwardian marriage, Heroism and Adventure, Personal commentary
Tagged Alison Miles, biography, British Library, Clare Hopkins, comments, Dardanelles, feng shui, Gallipoli, George Calderon, Graeme Wright, Harvey Pitcher, James Muckle, Karen Spink, Kittie Calderon, Laurence Binyon, Martin Shaw, The Great War, William Caine, World War I, Ypres
Leave a comment
Watch this Space
20/4/16. Several people have asked me about late photographs of Kittie. Here is the last one I know of. It was not easy to date. Triangulating from the probable year of Cairn terrier Bunty’s birth (1922), the dog’s known longevity, … Continue reading
Posted in Edwardian character, Edwardian English, Edwardian literature, Heroism and Adventure, Personal commentary
Tagged Ashford, Bernard Quaritch Ltd, biographies, biography, British Library, Bunty, comments, Edmund Gray, Eliza Stewart, George Calderon, Hythe, Ian Hamilton, Kennington, Kittie Calderon, Laurence Binyon, Martin Shaw, Mrs Stewart of Torquay, Nina Corbet, Onslow Ford, Percy Lubbock, Robin Britcher, The Brave Little Tailor, Torquay, White Raven, William Caine
Leave a comment
A friend’s published tribute
As I explained in my post of 25 June, after George’s death was officially accepted in the spring of 1919 Kittie invited his friends to write their memoirs of him, which of course included tributes, but none of these was … Continue reading
Posted in Edwardian character, Edwardian literature, Personal commentary
Tagged Annie Horniman, Dardanelles, Gallipoli, George Calderon, Kittie Calderon, Manchester, Manchester Repertory Company, Percy Lubbock, The Great War, The Manchester Guardian, Third Battle of Krithia, William Caine, World War I, Ypres
Leave a comment
The return to Tahiti
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
‘Black Pot’ and black holes
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
An Appeal
If you have not read Clare Hopkins’s ‘Recent Comment’ of 9 January, please do. Clare is Archivist of Trinity College, Oxford, and the author of what has been described to me by the Senior Tutor of a different Oxford foundation … Continue reading
Posted in Personal commentary
Tagged Archie Ripley, Arthur Farquharson, biography, Cecil Sharp, Clare Hopkins, comments, Coote Hedley, George Calderon, Kittie Calderon, Martin Shaw, Reginald Tiddy, The Brave Little Tailor, The Great War, Trinity College Oxford, William Caine, World War I
Leave a comment
Visitors and ‘victory’
The fact that Calderon wrote to Daniel and Henriette Sturge Moore on Sunday 22 November 1914, but not, as far as we know, to their parents, implies that their parents actually visited George in hospital. This is in any case … Continue reading
Posted in Edwardian literature
Tagged Belgium, Daniel Sturge Moore, Dr Albert Tebb, George Calderon, Henriette Sturge Moore, Inns of Court Regiment, Kittie Calderon, Louise Rosales, Manolo Ordoño de Rosales, Max Hastings, Nina Astley, Reginald Astley, Royal Horse Guards, Sir Roland James Corbet, The Blues, The Great War, Thomas Sturge Moore, William Caine, World War I, Ypres
Leave a comment
Writer’s self-block?
There is no evidence that Calderon wrote anything new in 1914 after signing up. Yet the previous seven months had been packed with literary-theatrical work: he had written or assembled most of his posthumous best-seller Tahiti, finished a pantomime The Brave Little … Continue reading
Posted in Edwardian literature, Personal commentary
Tagged Ballets Russes, Clara Calderon, comments, Diaghilev, George Calderon, Il'ia Tolstoi, Inns of Court Officer Training Corps, Inns of Court Regiment, Laurence Binyon, Lev Tolstoy, Martin Shaw, Michel Fokine, Tahiti, The Brave Little Tailor, The Great War, William Caine, World War I
Leave a comment
George Calderon: A complete new work surfaces
Garry Humphreys, author of a forthcoming book on Arthur Somervell (1863-1937), and I have now received from the archives of the Royal College of Music a link to the score of Somervell’s music for George’s ballet libretto The Blue Cloth (which … Continue reading →