Sir Richard Vincent Sutton c. 1913
Unpublished watercolour by George Calderon, Tahiti 1906
Colonel Sir Walter Coote Hedley c. 1920
Jean Ryckaert, May 1916.
Christmas 1901 Cartoon by George Calderon
George Calderon, 1912
A happy memory of Trinity College: undergraduates breakfast together in Downy V. Green, p. 77.
Monarch Butterfly Madeira
Michel and Vera Fokine in “Scheherazade”, 1914 (The Music And Theatre Library of Sweden, creative commons)
The entrance to Fort Brockhurst (picture from Britain’s Past)
Book sent to George Calderon in Russia by his mother, Christmas 1895.
George and Kittie Calderon 1905
George Calderon c.1901
Captain of the 11
K.N. Das Gupta and Margaret Mitchell in an Indian Dramatic Society production of The Maharani of Arakan, 1913?
Figure from Gauguin’s 1899 painting ‘Tahitian Women with Mango Blossoms’ (left); George Calderon’s pencil sketch ‘Manu’ (right)
Patrick Miles in his summer house, 11 December 2016
Basic form of the Calderon coat of arms
Frontis piece by Frank CalderonRecent 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
Dulc(e) et decor(um) est…
I have always been uncomfortable with what I take to be the popular interpretation of Wilfred Owen’s poem Dulce et Decorum est. My first experience of it was in about 1962 from the lips of our young English teacher, a … Continue reading
Posted in Edwardian character, Edwardian English, Edwardian literature, Heroism and Adventure, Modern parallels, Personal commentary
Tagged A.J.P. Taylor, Alan Clark, British Expeditionary Force, commemoration, comments, Dulce et Decorum, Edward Thomas, George Calderon, Henry Newbolt, Horace, Jessie Pope, Joan Littlewood, kitchen sink drama, Laurence Binyon, Rome, scansion, Seamus Heaney, The Great War, Wilfred Owen, Wilfred Owen Association (France), World War I
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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 (to be concluded)
My favourite Soviet dissident was Andrei Amal’rik (1938-80). He was short, he had suffered physically during two terms of exile in Siberia, but he was very squarely built and radiated resistance and survival. His black hair was cut in what … Continue reading
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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Russia (to be continued)
There is something I dread at dinner parties: being asked about ‘Russia’. I hope and pray, pray and hope, that no-one has heard I was a ‘Russianist’ in another life, lived in Russia under the Communist regime, smuggled for … Continue reading
Posted in Modern parallels, Personal commentary
Tagged Alexander Pushkin, Andrei Sakharov, Andrei Voznesenskii, Bolshevik coup, Boris Pasternak, comments, dinner parties, Fedor Dostoevskii, Fedor Tiutchev, George Calderon, Joseph Brodsky, Khodynka, Lev Tolstoi, Mongol Invasion, Nicholas II, October Revolution, Osip Mandel'shtam, Petr Viazemskii, Russia, Russianists, Vladimir Putin
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Is a dog literally…forever?
An alternative title to this post would be: ‘Why are there no cats’ cemeteries?’ Three weekends running we have visited local stately homes that were inhabited in the Edwardian period, and each of them had a Pets Cemetery in its … Continue reading
Posted in Edwardian character, Edwardian English, Edwardian literature, Edwardian marriage, Modern parallels, Personal commentary
Tagged 'Kay's Crib', animal souls, Archie Ripley, biographies, biography, Bunty, cats, comments, Dardanelles, dogs, Elizabeth Ellis, Gallipoli, George Calderon, Ginger, John Polkinghorne, Jones, Kittie Calderon, Mary Hamilton, Nina Corbet, Percy Lubbock, Pets Cemeteries, Russian Orthodoxy, The Great War, Third Battle of Krithia, Tommy, White Raven, World War I
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Enough (43) is enough!
Researching publishers and editors in depth, honing letters and email proposals to them, assembling different forms of synopsis and samples, dealing with the comeback (or lack of), and negotiating with publishers over the past nine months, has been hard work. … Continue reading
Posted in Personal commentary
Tagged Amazon, biographies, biography, comments, George Calderon, George Orwell, John Dewey, Kindle, publishers, self-publishing, The Great War, World War I
4 Comments
Proto-Poldark?
Many followers will have realised, I think, that I kept my previous post in pole position for a month because I thought it might give my last batch of prospective publishers a good idea of the book’s scope and, dare … Continue reading
Posted in Edwardian character, Edwardian English, Edwardian literature, Edwardian marriage, Heroism and Adventure, Modern parallels, Personal commentary
Tagged 'Q', Arthur Quiller-Couch, Bruce Richmond, Clare Hopkins, comments, Cornish novel, Cornishness, Cornwall, Daphne du Maurier, David Bran, Derwent May, genre, George Calderon, Gilbert Murray, Helen Dunmore, Ivan Turgenev, kailyard school, Morley Roberts, novel, Percy Lubbock, Poldark, Times Literary Supplement, topos, Trescas, Virginia Woolf, Zennor in Darkness
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Edwardian love, sex and the ‘T’other’
The Writers’ & Artists’ Yearbook 2017 is undoubtedly right to intone the mantra ‘edit, review, revise and then edit again’, but when you have read your 420-page typescript as many times as I have in the last six months, and made over … Continue reading
Posted in Edwardian character, Edwardian English, Edwardian marriage, Modern parallels, Personal commentary
Tagged Acton Reynald, Alice Keppel, Anita Leslie, appearances, Archie Ripley, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, biographies, biography, comments, Dardanelles, Diana Souhami, discretion, Emmetts, Foxwold, George Calderon, homosexuality, John Pym, Kittie Calderon, Lesbia Corbet, Lily Langtry, Marcel Proust, monogamy, Mormons, Nina Astley, Nina Corbet, Paul Boyer, secrecy, sex, spin, T'other, Tahiti, The Duchess of Duke Street, The Edwardians, The Great War, The Victorians, Third Battle of Krithia, Tom Quinn, visitors books, Walter Corbet, William Rothenstein, World War I
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A P.S. to paradox
After the flights of fancy of my previous post, I ought to make it clear that what really interests me about paradox is (1) why were Edwardian writers, particularly George Calderon, so mad on it, (2) is it yet another … Continue reading
Posted in Edwardian character, Edwardian English, Edwardian literature, Modern parallels, Personal commentary
Tagged amateurism, Bertolt Brecht, biographies, biography, Bryan, comments, Cromwell: Mall o'Monks, Fabian Society, fun, Geminae, George Bernard Shaw, George Calderon, James Wren, Jim Al-Khalili, Lao Tsu, Oscar Wilde, paradox, Raymond Smullyan, Revolt, Taoism, The Fountain, The Lieutenant's Heroine, The Two Talismans, wu wei
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Whoosh and bang!
A correspondent reminds me that on 7 July I wrote: Since the last approach I made to any of the 31 publishers on my A list was 1 June, I am inclined to think I should wait until at least … Continue reading
It makes you think
An anniversary has just passed: three years ago on 30 July I posted my first entry on Calderonia. I have just asked my blogmaster to analyse the rather confusing statistics generated daily by WordPress, in order to compile a list … Continue reading
Posted in Heroism and Adventure, Modern parallels, Personal commentary
Tagged 'real time', Andrew Tatham, biographies, biography, blogs, Calderonia, Clare Hopkins, commemoration, comments, Dardanelles, Gallipoli, George Calderon, haikus, James Miles, journalism, Kittie Calderon, Krithia, marketing, reviews, Tahiti, The Great War, Third Battle of Krithia, Trinity College Oxford, Unicorn Publishing Group, Wikipedia, World War I, Ypres
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28 July 1917: A letter to Mrs Calderon
July 28th 1917 Havelock Barracks, Lucknow, India … we are having some terrible weather out hear, its never stop raining for five days, … Continue reading
Posted in Edwardian character, Edwardian English, Edwardian marriage, Heroism and Adventure, Personal commentary
Tagged biographies, biography, Clement Quinn, comments, East Yorkshire Regiment, engineering, George Calderon, India, Kittie Calderon, Louise Rosales, Lucknow, mining, Sheffield, The Great War, World War I
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Decisions decisions
The most gratifying thing about the whole process of finding the right publisher for my biography of George, which has been going on since January, has been the enthusiasm so many publishers have shown for George himself and his story. … Continue reading
Brexit: a modest theory
The Times digest of events in the Great War and Mike Schuster’s Great War Project continue to come down the wires once a week, together with scores of daily Tweets from the Imperial War Museum, from the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, from … Continue reading →