Category Archives: Edwardian marriage

Guest post: John Dewey reviews the life of Rosa Newmarch

Rosa Newmarch (1857-1940) was an extraordinary woman of many talents – ‘une femme inoubliable’ as Sibelius once called her, a phrase adopted by Lewis Stevens as the title of this fascinating biography published by Matador in 2011.  She achieved considerable … Continue reading

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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Oxfordshire, which I had heard about for the first time from Mrs Mary Lowe, whom we traced as the copyright holder for unpublished works of the American … Continue reading

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Cogitations of an indexer

A profound thank you to all who commented or emailed me about the illustrations to my biography. Nearly everyone expressed a preference for having them in the text as close as possible to their mention, so that is what I … Continue reading

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Far End: a new Calderonian world

The greatest pleasure to have come out of the hair-tearing ordeal of obtaining permission to publish quotations from scores of letters to George and Kittie written a hundred years ago (see 17 April 2017) has been to correspond with Mrs … Continue reading

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An Edwardian Christmas

Happy Christmas to All Our Readers, and thank you for following Calderonia into its fourth year! At Heathland Lodge, George and Kittie’s home from 1901 to 1912 in the Vale of Health, they always staged a large family Christmas, despite … Continue reading

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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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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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