Book sent to George Calderon in Russia by his mother, Christmas 1895.
Sir Richard Vincent Sutton c. 1913
Monarch Butterfly Madeira
Unpublished watercolour by George Calderon, Tahiti 1906
A happy memory of Trinity College: undergraduates breakfast together in Downy V. Green, p. 77.
Captain of the 11
Patrick Miles in his summer house, 11 December 2016
Colonel Sir Walter Coote Hedley c. 1920
Christmas 1901 Cartoon by George Calderon
Jean Ryckaert, May 1916.
Basic form of the Calderon coat of arms
George Calderon c.1901
Figure from Gauguin’s 1899 painting ‘Tahitian Women with Mango Blossoms’ (left); George Calderon’s pencil sketch ‘Manu’ (right)
George Calderon, 1912
Frontis piece by Frank Calderon
Michel and Vera Fokine in “Scheherazade”, 1914 (The Music And Theatre Library of Sweden, creative commons)
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)
George and Kittie Calderon 1905Recent Comments
- Patrick Miles on Source? Dear Katy, it's lovely to hear from you again! I hope you are well down there in Kent. Would you believe it, I too typed in that first line, as I thought it was perhaps the... (May 12, 2025 at 11:45 am)
- Roger Pulvers on Source? Ah, it is simply a тайна ремесла. But, I assure you, I did not use AI. Please give the book to someone who has not read it and is in your neighbourhood. (May 12, 2025 at 9:57 am)
- Katy George on Source? Pipped to the post! I typed in the first line line of the 2nd paragraph and it came up straight away to the source on Faded Page. (May 12, 2025 at 9:56 am)
- Patrick Miles on Source? Roger, you're a genius! (As if I didn't know.) Did you simply recognise it from your reading, as it were, or did you use AI? We used the most sophisticated search engines... (May 12, 2025 at 9:46 am)
- Roger Pulvers on Source? Unpopular Opinions by Dorothy L Sayers, that's the source of the quote. (May 12, 2025 at 7:24 am)
Author Archives: Patrick Miles
Thank you!
We are two-thirds of our way through sending out advance, review and complimentary copies all over the world, and have received many plaudits for the appearance and even ‘beauty’ of the book, as well as overwhelming approval of the in-text … Continue reading
The Announcement
We have now received the book in Cambridge — and we think Clays Ltd have done a superb job! Any flaws you notice will be of the author’s making; Clays have printed to the last foreign font and idiosyncrasy … Continue reading
Posted in Edwardian character, Edwardian literature, Edwardian marriage, Heroism and Adventure, Modern parallels, Personal commentary
Tagged ABE, Amazon, Andrew Tatham, biographies, biography, Cambridge, Clays Ltd, comments, Dardanelles, Gallipoli, George Calderon, George Calderon: Edwardian Genius, Georgina Aldridge, Harvey Pitcher, Jodi Foulgar, John Dewey, Kindle, Kittie Calderon, limited edition, Martin Shaw, Nielsen Corporation, Oxford, publishers, Sam&Sam, St Andrews, The Great War, Third Battle of Krithia, World War I, Ypres
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pre-Announcement announcement
Sam&Sam have embraced Ian Strathcarron’s kind advice to allow three months for marketing my book. The official date of publication, therefore, is 7 September. Shortly before that, a separate web-page and checkout will be available for buying the book online. … Continue reading
The Editor-in-Chief
It is a truth universally forgotten until too late, that as soon as we call a kettle black we start turning into a pot. I know too much about Constance Garnett, her husband Edward and his father Richard. There … Continue reading
Posted in Edwardian character, Edwardian English, Edwardian literature, Edwardian marriage, Modern parallels, Personal commentary
Tagged Anton Chekhov, Charles Dickens, Constance Garnett, cricket, D.H. Lawrence, Duckworth, editors, Edward Garnett, Edward Thomas, H.E. Bates, Helen Smith, John Galsworthy, Jonathan Cape, Joseph Conrad, kettles, pots, publishers readers, Richard Garnett, T. Fisher Unwin, T.E. Lawrence, William Heinemann
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So a second edition, then…
It would have been almost too dull if there had been no dramas with Clays the printers in the final run-up to production last week, but I must admit I wasn’t expecting basic technical questions to erupt concerning the jacket … Continue reading
A ‘funny’ moment
Idly doing my housework, as one does, I suddenly realised that my nylon ‘feather’ duster had whisked over Kittie’s surviving suitcase without my even noticing it. I paused and by reflex put my hand on the case. Why I did … Continue reading
Posted in Edwardian character, Edwardian marriage, Heroism and Adventure, Modern parallels, Personal commentary
Tagged aftermath, biographies, biography, comments, depression, economics, George Calderon, housework, Khodynka, Kittie Calderon, Martin Shaw, Moscow, political economy, publishers, publishing, suitcase, Susie Boyt, Taoism
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What I have learned about today’s books
After, in effect, four sets of proofs since March, we uploaded the complete PDF file of the book to the printers (Clays of St Ives) three days ago, five days before the deadline. There will be no celebrating, however, until … Continue reading
Posted in Modern parallels, Personal commentary
Tagged biographies, biography, Boris Johnson, Chatto & Windus, Clays Ltd, comments, Faber & Faber, geometric centre, George Calderon, hair leads, HarperCollins, Hodder & Stoughton, Index, Jonathan Cape, layout, nightmares, Oliver Simon, optical centre, orphans, printing, publishers, The Dedication, typography, widows
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Word and image
One of the many, many benefits to me of this blog has been what I would go so far as to call the ‘democracy’ of it: the fact that it stands open to feedback and Comment from you, its subscribers, … Continue reading
Posted in Heroism and Adventure, Modern parallels, Personal commentary
Tagged A Group Photograph, Andrew Tatham, Austerlitz, biographies, biography, Bloodswept Lands and Seas of Red, book illustrations, cartoons, commemoration, comments, design, George Calderon, Kittie Calderon, Lev Tolstoi, Louis Arthur Klementaski, photographs, printers, self-publishing, The Rings of Saturn, W.G. Sebald, World War I
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Tense, moi?
If you sensed unwonted stress at the end of my previous post, you were right. When I decided at the beginning of January that we would bring out the book in six months, I calculated that as ‘the beginning of … Continue reading
Posted in Personal commentary
Tagged Arthur Balfour, biographies, biography, commemoration, comments, Dardanelles, deadlines, Gallipoli, George Calderon, indexes, orphans, PDF files, pressure, proofreading, proofs, publishing, Sam&Sam, stress, Third Battle of Krithia, typesetting, typography, widows
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DnA
Longer-term followers of Calderonia will be aware of my preoccupation with Edwardian ‘dilettantism’ and ‘amateurism’. Laurence Binyon, Martin Shaw and Percy Lubbock went out of their way to stress that George was not a dilettante, and the word ‘amateur’ was … Continue reading
Posted in Edwardian character, Edwardian English, Modern parallels, Personal commentary
Tagged amateurism, biographies, biography, comments, dilettantism, fringe theatre, George Calderon, George Calderon: Edwardian Genius, Kittie Calderon, Laurence Binyon, Martin Shaw, Percy Lubbock, publishers, Sam&Sam, self-publishing, semantic, TLS
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Jacketed!
I herewith post the front and back cover of my book, designed by Dan Mogford, who has been a delight to work with and whose first-rate services are not pricey. The front and back flaps are also ready, but I don’t … Continue reading
Posted in Edwardian character, Edwardian literature, Modern parallels, Personal commentary
Tagged biographies, biography, comments, Dan Mogford, Derwent May, Emmetts, Frederick Hollyer, George Calderon, George Calderon: Edwardian Genius, George Clooney, Harvey Pitcher, jacket, jacket design, Laurence Brockliss, Sean Connery
7 Comments
George Calderon and the gender pay gap
Obviously I believe George Calderon’s life is interesting in itself — dramatic, even — but another reason I have written his biography is that many of the issues of the day that he responded to are still with us (e.g. … Continue reading
Posted in Edwardian character, Edwardian English, Edwardian marriage, Modern parallels, Personal commentary
Tagged biographies, biography, comments, economics, feminism, gender difference, gender pay gap, George Calderon, James Boswell, market economies, market forces, market value, Men's League for Opposing Woman Suffrage, Millicent Fawcett, National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies, Octavia Hill, political economy, Samuel Johnson, suffragism, suffragists, The Guardian, The Times, Woman in Relation to the State, women's wages
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Far End draws closer
On 26 January I blogged about the house Far End at Kingham in Oxfordshire, which I had heard about for the first time from Mrs Mary Lowe, whom we traced as the copyright holder for unpublished works of the American … Continue reading
Posted in Edwardian character, Edwardian English, Edwardian literature, Edwardian marriage, Heroism and Adventure, Modern parallels, Personal commentary
Tagged Anne Douglas Sedgwick, Balbec, Basil de Sélincourt, biographies, biography, D.H. Lawrence, Dardanelles, F.R. Leavis, Far End, Gallipoli, Garsington, George Calderon, Giotto, Ian Lowe, Julia Chapin Alsop, Kingham, Kittie Calderon, Lady Ottoline Morrell, Laurence Binyon, Marcel Proust, Mary Lowe, New College Oxford, Oxfordshire, Petersfield, Piccadilly, Sir Edward Grey, Swan & Edgar, Tante, The Encounter, The Good Life, The Great War, The Little French Girl, Third Battle of Krithia, vegetables, Virago Classics, Walt Whitman, William Blake, Women in Love, World War 2, World War I
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Interlude on a familiar theme
Clays have pleasantly surprised me by discovering that they have over-printed by not 20 copies, which is the number under/over contractually allowed, but 59 — which they offer me at an extraordinarily good price including free delivery. I have snapped … Continue reading →