Author Archives: Patrick Miles

Plum pie in the sky

I was intending to post about this subject in February, but my attention wandered and the relevant newspaper cuttings got buried. I am very glad that I put it off, as I have now read this recently reprinted book, which … Continue reading

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Punching on

The campaign to publish continues to develop in unpredictable ways. I have lost three publishers, through no fault of their own. One of them does no real marketing, but saddest of all is the fact that Giles de la Mare, … Continue reading

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The Petersfield parenthesis

Happy the person who can combine work with a holiday in a lovely place. Definitely in need of such a break, we spent four days in the Petersfield area of Hampshire at the beginning of the month. We had not … Continue reading

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Publication: the state of play

Contrary to my original dread, I can’t possibly claim that the process of approaching commercial publishers has been dull and predictable… I explained my strategy in a post on 18 January. I had just sent the advance party out and … Continue reading

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Fragment of Kittie

Life once more whisked me away from the Sussex Downs — they had made me learn a lot about England & these Islands all of them each in there [sic] particular way – Ireland – Scotland – England – – and yes … Continue reading

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A slight hitch, aaargh!

I fell in love with this picture the moment I saw it in 2012: I had come across it on the website for the National Trust’s property of Emmetts in Kent. It is no longer available there, but actually it … Continue reading

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A skipped life

For my taste, this book is the most innovative biography since Ruth Scurr’s John Aubrey: My Own Life (see 15 October 2016). Although reviewed positively when it appeared last year, it is so original that I defy anyone to get their head quite round … Continue reading

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Empires end like this…

There are two reasons that obtaining Permissions has taken so long, in my case at least (see 17 April and 20 April). First, although I rapidly earmarked the sixteen ‘major’ sources of quoted unpublished material in my biography, e.g. William Rothenstein, … Continue reading

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‘All shall be well’ really?

The text of my biography is now as ready, I think, as it’s ever going to be, my approaches to publishers are roughly on course, but I am far behind with my Permissions, and that means with writing my voluminous … Continue reading

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Letter to a publisher

Not surprisingly, I suppose, at my time of life I feel more confident about tackling publishers with a proposal than I have before. I know more about the publishers out there and the books they are producing, I understand better … Continue reading

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Guest post: Laurence Brockliss, ‘Journalists in Victorian and Edwardian Britain’

George Calderon was a playwright, essayist and translator as well as a journalist. There was nothing unusual in this as journalism before the First World War did not exist as a distinctive career. In 1911 individuals who described themselves as … Continue reading

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The U.K./E.U. copyright chimaera: a postscript

Following my last post, I began to wonder if, after all, I hadn’t overdone it. But I soon received a number of emails approving of my copyright ‘polemic’, ‘evisceration’, ‘logical deconstruction’, as they called it. From details in these emails, … Continue reading

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The triumph of…what?

Given that my post about George’s 1913 visit to Madeira was up for over a fortnight, that Alison’s guest post (which was another in the ‘new biographies’ series) has been up for ten days, and on 21 April Laurence Brockliss’s … Continue reading

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Guest post: Alison Miles, ‘A Dangerous Innocence’

The title of Artemis Cooper’s biography of Elizabeth Jane Howard (John Murray, 2016) certainly gives a clue to what lay behind Howard’s life. Jane (as she was known) developed childhood insecurities that appear to have stemmed from her need for … Continue reading

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‘He was away, far away…’

The S.S. Aguila, a cruise ship of the Yeoward Line, dropped anchor off Funchal, the capital of Madeira, on 31 March 1913, probably around lunchtime. There were twenty-nine passengers aboard, including George Calderon. Within a couple of hours he was sitting … Continue reading

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George L. Calderon, cartoonist

I am extremely grateful to James Miles for his vibrant guest post on Schulz and Peanuts. It certainly improved Calderonia’s viewing figures! I am always loth to ‘take down’ guest posts, because they have something unique and often definitive about them. … Continue reading

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