K.N. Das Gupta and Margaret Mitchell in an Indian Dramatic Society production of The Maharani of Arakan, 1913?
Basic form of the Calderon coat of arms
Captain of the 11
Colonel Sir Walter Coote Hedley c. 1920
George Calderon, 1912
George Calderon c.1901
Monarch Butterfly Madeira
Sir Richard Vincent Sutton c. 1913
Jean Ryckaert, May 1916.
Christmas 1901 Cartoon by George Calderon
Patrick Miles in his summer house, 11 December 2016
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)
A happy memory of Trinity College: undergraduates breakfast together in Downy V. Green, p. 77.
Unpublished watercolour by George Calderon, Tahiti 1906
Frontis piece by Frank Calderon
Figure from Gauguin’s 1899 painting ‘Tahitian Women with Mango Blossoms’ (left); George Calderon’s pencil sketch ‘Manu’ (right)
George and Kittie Calderon 1905
Book sent to George Calderon in Russia by his mother, Christmas 1895.Recent Comments
- Patrick Miles on Guest Post by John Pym: A Soviet film of ‘The Lady with the Little Dog’ Many, many thanks for reprising, Johnnie, for I know how busy you are. How serendipitous that you had just seen a 'live' performance of Murnau's b&w Sunrise! I gather from... (March 14, 2025 at 10:21 am)
- John Pym on Guest Post by John Pym: A Soviet film of ‘The Lady with the Little Dog’ March 8, 2025: Last evening, I watched a digital transfer of a black-and-white movie, made by an expatriate German in California nearly a hundred years ago, in a packed town... (March 10, 2025 at 4:36 pm)
- Patrick Miles on Guest Post by John Pym: A Soviet film of ‘The Lady with the Little Dog’ Your response here is (obviously) deeply informed... Thank you very much indeed. In comparing the coach ride to Simferopol in Heifitz's film with the chariot race in Ben-Hur... (March 5, 2025 at 10:01 am)
- John Pym on Guest Post by John Pym: A Soviet film of ‘The Lady with the Little Dog’ Black-and-white camerawork was, I suspect, as natural to the director of The Lady with the Little Dog as breathing in and out or eating his breakfast. I doubt that he was... (February 28, 2025 at 11:01 pm)
- Patrick Miles on Guest Post by John Pym: A Soviet film of ‘The Lady with the Little Dog’ We are deeply favoured and honoured to publish on Calderonia the eminent film critic John Pym's magnificent tribute to Heifitz's film The Lady with the Little Dog, perfectly... (February 24, 2025 at 10:56 am)
Category Archives: Heroism and Adventure
The War again
As readers of George Calderon: Edwardian Genius will know (go on, try it!), George and Kittie were very close to the Pym family, whose home was Foxwold at Brasted Chart in Kent. Violet Pym was Kittie’s niece by her first marriage and, … Continue reading
Posted in Edwardian character, Edwardian English, Edwardian marriage, Heroism and Adventure, Modern parallels, Personal commentary
Tagged Alan Moorehead, Aubrey Herbert, Brasted Chart, Charles Evelyn Pym, comments, Dardanelles, Foxwold, Gallipoli, Geoge Calderon: Edwardian Genius, George Calderon, Ian Hamilton, intercultural contact, Islam, Jack Pym, John Pym, Kittie Calderon, The Great War, Third Battle of Krithia, Turkish army, Violet Pym, World War I
Leave a comment
From the diary of a writer-publisher: 4
16 August Walked from King’s Cross arriving at Foyles in Charing Cross Road 10.00 a.m. to pick up unsold copies of George. Was intending to walk with them from there to the National Theatre, but by now it was raining … Continue reading
Posted in Edwardian literature, Heroism and Adventure, Personal commentary
Tagged Annotranslate, Anton Chekhov, biographies, biography, Blithe Spirit, bookshops, British Library, butterflies, Che Guevara, comments, Cossus cossus, dragonflies, fishing, Foyles, George Calderon, George Calderon: Edwardian Genius, Goat Moth, haiku, Haiku Quarterly, Heywood Hill, honesty pods, Horatio Nelson, John Sandoe Books, Laurence Brockliss, Lesbia Corbet, Meiji, National Theatre, poetry magazines, Presence, tench, The Great War, William Beatty, willow, World War I
Leave a comment
From the diary of a writer-publisher: 3
14 May I gather, from a reliable source, that access to Calderonia has been blocked in Russia (I nearly said ‘the Soviet Union’). This would explain why no Russian viewers have featured in the stats for months. One can only … Continue reading
Posted in Edwardian literature, Heroism and Adventure, Modern parallels, Personal commentary
Tagged Akala, Amazon, biographies, biography, British Council, Calderonia, Clays Ltd, comments, cyber warfare, Earlham, Edward Lear, eschatology, Gallipoli, George Calderon, George Calderon: Edwardian Genius, haiku, James Tait Black Prize, Jenny Uglow, John Dewey, John Polkinghorne, Kittie Calderon, Leonid Brezhnev, Marie Colvin, paradise, Percy Lubbock, plastic, pollution, ravens, Russia, Sam&Sam, Sam2, self-publishing, Shetland, Simon Cooke, The Great War, Third Battle of Krithia, Vladimir Putin, wokefulness, World War I, Yell
Leave a comment
From the diary of a writer-publisher: 1
27 March Took the train asap to Daunt Books in Hampstead. They had emailed that ‘unfortunately we haven’t sold a copy and if you don’t collect them they will be given to a charity shop’. That’s £180 worth of books! … Continue reading
Posted in Edwardian character, Edwardian literature, Heroism and Adventure, Personal commentary
Tagged biographies, biography, comments, Dardanelles, Daunt Books, Ed Maggs, Gallipoli, George Calderon, Germany, GPO, Hampstead Heath, independent publishing, Maggs Bros. Ltd, Post Office, Stig Abell, string, The Great War, Times Literary Supplement
1 Comment
The Errata, Corrigenda and Addenda
George Calderon: Edwardian Genius has now been out for just over five months. I started ‘proofreading’ the book the moment I received it from Clays on 4 June 2018; it’s been ‘hoovered’ many times since. Now seems the right moment … Continue reading
Posted in Edwardian character, Edwardian English, Edwardian literature, Edwardian marriage, Heroism and Adventure, Modern parallels, Personal commentary
Tagged addenda, bibliography, biographies, biography, comments, corrections, corrigenda, editing, errata, formatting, George Calderon, George Calderon: Edwardian Genius, Index, indie publishing, John Pym, mistakes, proofreading, publishing, Sam&Sam, typography, typos
Leave a comment
Is all biography also autobiography?
As long-term followers will know, the above question worries me (in the canine sense). The reason my Introduction went through so many versions was that half of my test-readers thought there was too much of me in it and not enough … Continue reading
Posted in Heroism and Adventure, Modern parallels, Personal commentary
Tagged America, anthropology, autobiography, biographies, biography, cicadas, comments, Cyclops, expansionism, Fedor Dostoevskii, George Calderon, imperialism, Japan, Jizo, John Aubrey, Lafcadio Hearn, Meiji, militarism, nationalism, novels, pornography, Roger Pulvers, Ruth Scurr, The Dream of Lafcadio Hearn, The Unmaking of an American, Yakumo Koizumi
1 Comment
A slim classic
In a very stimulating review of my book in the annual Report of George’s old college, Trinity Oxford, Michael Alexander writes: ‘Should a biographer tell all that has been found, or select to streamline the story? It depends.’ He is right. … Continue reading
Posted in Edwardian character, Edwardian English, Edwardian literature, Heroism and Adventure, Personal commentary
Tagged Alessandro Falcetta, Armistice, biographies, biography, brevity, comments, Craiglockhart, George Calderon, Graham Greene, Harold Owen, James Rendel Harris, Jon Stallworthy, length, Michael Alexander, Ors, PTSD, publishers, Sambre and Oise Canal, Siegfried Sassoon, The Great War, Trinity College Oxford, Vincent van Gogh, Wilfred Owen, World War I
Leave a comment
A real biography
I don’t think I have read a new biography — or any biography — since Helen Smith’s The Uncommon Reader: A Life of Edward Garnett, which I wrote about on 1 June 2018. Given that I was constantly reading biographies as they … Continue reading
Posted in Edwardian character, Edwardian literature, Heroism and Adventure, Modern parallels, Personal commentary
Tagged Alessandro Falcetta, Armenia, biographies, biography, Brer Rabbit, Carole Spencer, comments, Congregationalism, Congress for the History of Religions, Corsica, cows, Darwinism, Edward Garnett, existentialism, George Calderon, Helen Smith, Jesus Christ, literary theory, mysticism, Nonconformism, Plymouth, Quakerism, Rendel Harris, Ruth Scurr, Søren Kierkegaard, Times Literary Supplement, William Littleboy, Woodbrooke
Leave a comment
The 150th anniversary of a very remarkable man
One hundred and fifty years ago today, early in the morning, Clara Calderon (aged thirty-two) gave birth to George Leslie Calderon at 9 Marlborough Place, St John’s Wood. If not present at the actual birth, his father the Victorian painter … Continue reading
Posted in Edwardian character, Edwardian English, Edwardian literature, Edwardian marriage, Heroism and Adventure, Modern parallels, Personal commentary
Tagged Amelia Storey, anniversaries, Arabella Court, biographies, birthplace, Clara Calderon, Dardanelles, Frank Calderon, Gallipoli, George Calderon, George Calderon: Edwardian Genius, John Calderon, Marlborough Place, Philip Hermogenes Calderon, readers, Sam&Sam
Leave a comment
First biography of Gallipoli war hero
Weep, you may weep, for you may touch them not. Wilfred Owen Although at 45 well over-age, George Calderon was determined in 1914 to get to the Front. He signed up on 4 August 1914 and went with the Blues … Continue reading
Posted in Edwardian character, Edwardian English, Edwardian literature, Edwardian marriage, Heroism and Adventure, Modern parallels, Personal commentary
Tagged Achi Baba, Anton Chekhov, biographies, biography, British Expeditionary Force, comments, Dardanelles, Gallipoli, George Calderon, King's Own Scottish Borderers, Kittie Calderon, KOSB, Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry, Royal Horse Guards, Tahiti, The Blues, The Great War, Third Battle of Krithia, Twelve Tree Copse, World War I, Ypres
Leave a comment
The War Is Over
I went to attend the Armistice commemoration on Sunday in my home town of Sandwich, whence my grandfather set out for Gallipoli in 1915 and whither he fortunately returned from Ypres in 1918. This was the programme: As you can … Continue reading
Posted in Edwardian character, Edwardian English, Edwardian literature, Heroism and Adventure, Modern parallels, Personal commentary
Tagged Armistice, Book of Common Prayer, comments, Gallipoli, George Calderon, memorialisation, memory, National Memorial Arboretum, Peter Jackson, Remembrance Sunday, Sandwich, St Clement's Church, The Great War, They Shall Not Grown Old, World War I, Ypres
2 Comments
‘Bugles calling for them…’
It is a source of sorrow to me that for unforeseeable reasons I have not been able to honour my acceptance two years ago of an extremely kind invitation from the Wilfred Owen Association (France) to attend the commemoration today … Continue reading
Posted in Edwardian character, Edwardian English, Edwardian literature, Heroism and Adventure, Modern parallels, Personal commentary
Tagged Anthem for Doomed Youth, British Expeditionary Force, bugles, commemoration, comments, Dulce et Decorum, English language, George Calderon, Greater Love, historians, Ivor Gurney, Ors, Poets Corner, Rupert Brooke, Sambre-Oise Canal, Siegfried Sassoon, The Great War, war poetry, War Poets, Wilfred Owen, Wilfred Owen Association, World War I
2 Comments
Who are ‘war heroes’?
Subscribers to Calderonia are probably unaware that the wording of the sales post below, which has been up since publication day on 7 September, has actually changed several times as we were obliged to re-target our marketing by theme … Continue reading
Posted in Edwardian character, Edwardian English, Edwardian literature, Heroism and Adventure, Modern parallels, Personal commentary
Tagged Achilles, Aristotle, comments, Crusades, Dardanelles, Edith Cavell, Gallipoli, George Calderon, hamartia, heroes, Horatio Nelson, hubris, Iliad, Karsh, Lemuel Francis Abbott, Moscow Arts, patri-passionism, patriotism, Patroclus, Peter Jackson, Prospect Theatre Company, Richard Westmancott, self-sacrifice, St John Hankin, The Great War, They Shall Not Grow Old, Third Battle of Krithia, Toby Robertson, war heroes, war victims, Wellington Memorial, Winston Churchill, World War I
Leave a comment
The War, chronotopia and commemoration
Many people deny the existence of a ‘national mood’ and ‘national consciousness’. I certainly don’t believe in the latter, any more than I accept the idea of a collective soul (the ‘Russian Soul’ etc). But I think there is a … Continue reading
Posted in Edwardian character, Heroism and Adventure, Modern parallels, Personal commentary
Tagged A Group Photograph, Alrewas, Andrew Tatham, Armistice Day, biographies, biography, British Expeditionary Force, C.F. Aspinall-Oglander, chronotopia, closure, commemoration, comments, Commonwealth War Graves Commission, Dan Snow, Dardanelles, Gallipoli, Gallipoli Memorial, George Calderon, Imperial War Museum, Kemal Atatürk, Laurence Brockliss, March Offensive, memorialisation, Mustafa Kemal, Nadir Imamoğlu, national consciousness, National Memorial Arboretum, national mood, On This Day, Patrick Cordingley, Remembrance Sunday, Russian Soul, SANDS, Shot at Dawn Memorial, Tate Britain, The Great War, Third Battle of Krithia, Twelve Tree Copse, World War I
3 Comments
Grow old they shall not
It is the time of year again when I tussle with the question of how George’s friend Laurence Binyon’s half-line ‘They shall grow not old’ should be spoken (or mutely read), what it means depending on how you speak it, … Continue reading →