The entrance to Fort Brockhurst (picture from Britain’s Past)
George Calderon, 1912
Patrick Miles in his summer house, 11 December 2016
Figure from Gauguin’s 1899 painting ‘Tahitian Women with Mango Blossoms’ (left); George Calderon’s pencil sketch ‘Manu’ (right)
Sir Richard Vincent Sutton c. 1913
Colonel Sir Walter Coote Hedley c. 1920
Michel and Vera Fokine in “Scheherazade”, 1914 (The Music And Theatre Library of Sweden, creative commons)
Frontis piece by Frank Calderon
Christmas 1901 Cartoon by George Calderon
Unpublished watercolour by George Calderon, Tahiti 1906
Captain of the 11
Monarch Butterfly Madeira
George and Kittie Calderon 1905
Basic form of the Calderon coat of arms
A happy memory of Trinity College: undergraduates breakfast together in Downy V. Green, p. 77.
George Calderon c.1901
Jean Ryckaert, May 1916.
Book sent to George Calderon in Russia by his mother, Christmas 1895.
K.N. Das Gupta and Margaret Mitchell in an Indian Dramatic Society production of The Maharani of Arakan, 1913?Recent Comments
- Stuart Randall on 4 June 1915: The Third Battle of Krithia Thank you so much for putting this online. My great-uncle, Private William Pitt, served with the 4th Btn. Worcestershire Regiment. He was posthumously mentioned in despatches... (May 21, 2025 at 5:29 pm)
- Stephen Rust on Guest post by John Pym: Games Ancient and Modern A wonderful post. John, I've always adored your writings about Merchant Ivory and would love to chat more about them someday. I teach cinema at the University of Oregon,... (May 16, 2025 at 6:45 pm)
- 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)
Category Archives: Edwardian literature
‘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
Posted in Edwardian character, Edwardian English, Edwardian literature, Edwardian marriage, Heroism and Adventure, Modern parallels, Personal commentary
Tagged acacias, Acton Reynald, African Tulip, Anton Chekhov, Archie Ripley, biographies, biography, Botanical Gardens Funchal, bougainvillea, cable cars, Canary Islands, Charles Lambe, Clara Butt, comments, Dardanelles, Funchal, Gallipoli, George Calderon, Harold Dowdall, Jim Corbet, Kittie Calderon, Las Palmas, Lesbia Corbet, Levada do Norte, Lisbon, Liverpool, Madeira, Manchester, Mary Downdall, Monarch butterfly, Monte, Monte Palace Hotel, Nina Astley, Nina Corbet, Portugal, R.M.S. 'Orsova', Reginald Astley, Revolt, S.S. Aguila, Spain, Tahiti, The Canary Islands, The Fountain, The Great War, Trinity College Oxford, Tropical Gardens Funchal, Well Walk, wicker toboggans, World War I, Yeoward Line
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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
Posted in Edwardian character, Edwardian English, Edwardian literature, Modern parallels, Personal commentary
Tagged Ballets Russes, biographies, biography, Charles M. Schulz, comments, Funchal, George Calderon, Kittie Calderon, Madeira, Max Beerbohm, Michel Fokine, Peanuts, Percy Lubbock, The Red Cloth
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Guest posts and…George a Labour man?
I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say that biography is going through a particularly fertile and innovative time. I’m always interested, then, in biographies about new subjects and biographies that tell their stories in new ways. Next week, blogmaster … Continue reading
Posted in Edwardian character, Edwardian literature, Modern parallels, Personal commentary
Tagged Alexander Masters, Alison Miles, Arthur Bourchier, biographies, biography, Brideshead Revisited, Charles Schulz, comments, Elizabeth Jane Howard, Evelyn Waugh, Forsyte Saga, George Bernard Shaw, George Calderon, Hubert Harben, Independent Labour Party, James Miles, John Galsworthy, Kittie Calderon, Laurence Brockliss, Mary Jerrold, Philip Harben, Strand Theatre, The Fountain
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Another wildcard!
After fifty years practice, I have no difficulty transliterating Russian into the Roman alphabet using three different Anglo-American systems; it’s so automatic I can practically switch my brain off as I do it… But I cannot hold the hundred or so … Continue reading
Posted in Edwardian English, Edwardian literature, Modern parallels, Personal commentary
Tagged Aldwych Theatre, Anton Chekhov, bibliography, biography, comments, Frederick Lloyd, George Calderon, Hubert Harben, J.P. Wearing, Kittie Calderon, Mary Jerrold, Modern Humanities Research Association, Novello Theatre, Philip Harben, Strand Theatre, The Cherry Orchard, The Fountain, The London Stage, The Seagull, Theatre Royal Glasgow
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‘The errors of Democracy’
I am very pleased to have been able to incorporate in my Bibliography an article that was published only three weeks ago: Thomas Lansdall-Welfare and others, ‘Content Analysis of 150 Years of British Periodicals’, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, … Continue reading
Posted in Edwardian character, Edwardian English, Edwardian literature, Modern parallels, Personal commentary
Tagged Archie Ripley, artificial intelligence, autocracy, Brexit, comments, coronations, cricket, culturomics, democracy, Dwala, Edward Carpenter, Emily Wilding Davidson, football, George Calderon, horses, James Thompson, journalism, Kittie Calderon, Liberal Imperialism, Nello Cristiani, newspapers, Oliver Moody, Parliament, proportional representation, referendums, regional newspapers, Russia, suffragettes, suffragists, Thomas Lansdall-Welfare, trains, Trinity College Oxford, Tsarism
11 Comments
‘Literally for this…’
This is the most original, enjoyable, moving and impressive book about the First World War that I have read since the centenary began. It is not a ‘history’ book like Max Hastings’s Catastrophe, say, Peter Hart’s Gallipoli, or David Reynolds’s The Long … Continue reading
Posted in Edwardian character, Edwardian English, Edwardian literature, Heroism and Adventure, Personal commentary
Tagged Adlestrop, Army Veterinary Corps, Belgium, birds, British Expeditionary Force, cats, comments, Dardanelles, David Reynolds, dogs, Edward Elgar, Edward Thomas, Edward Thomas's reason for signing up, Eleanor Farjeon, Ford Madox Hueffer, Gallipoli, George Calderon, horses, John Lewis-Stempel, Max Hastings, Nature, Peter Hart, rabbits, rats, skylarks, The Great War, Warhorse, World War I, Ypres
2 Comments
Publishing
After nearly fifty years of contact with publishers, I could bore for England on the subject…which means that I must make sure I don’t! I will try to keep this short and focussed on the task of finding the right … Continue reading
Posted in Edwardian character, Edwardian literature, Edwardian marriage, Personal commentary
Tagged Anton Chekhov, biographies, biography, comments, George Calderon, Harvey Pitcher, John Murray, Kittie Calderon, publishers, publishing, Sam&Sam, self-publishing, The Great War, World War I, writing mania
3 Comments
Guest post: Clare Hopkins, ‘One Man and his College’
Anyone who has ever watched an episode of Morse or Lewis will know that Oxford Colleges are well supplied with portraits. Founders, archbishops, prime ministers, and Nobel Prize winners gaze grandly down from the panelled walls of Dining Halls. Smaller … Continue reading
Posted in Edwardian character, Edwardian English, Edwardian literature, Edwardian marriage, Heroism and Adventure, Modern parallels, Personal commentary
Tagged Archibald Ripley, Archie Ripley, Arnold Pienne, Arthur Lowry, athletics, biography, Clare Hopkins, commemoration, comments, Dardanelles, Downy V. Green, Eastcote, Frederick Hollyer, Gallipoli, George Calderon, Gryphon Club, Harold Dowdall, Henry Woods, Herbert Blakiston, Hugh Legge, Kittie Calderon, Laurence Binyon, Michael Furse, Miners Strike 1912, Percy Lubbock, Rugby, Smoking Concert, St Ives College, The Fountain, The Great War, Third Battle of Krithia, Trinity College Oxford, Trinity College War Memorial, World War I
6 Comments
George’s alma maters
I little thought, when I visited the archives of Trinity College, Oxford, on 4 August 2011 to research aspects of George Calderon’s undergraduate years there, that five years later I would still be in invaluable contact with the Archivist, Clare … Continue reading
Posted in Edwardian character, Edwardian English, Edwardian literature, Edwardian marriage, Heroism and Adventure, Personal commentary
Tagged alma mater, biographies, biography, Calderonia, Clare Hopkins, comments, George Calderon, Kittie Calderon, L.W.B. Brockliss, One Man and his College, The Great War, Trinity College Oxford, University of Oxford, World War I
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‘He became his admirers…’
W.H. Auden’s ‘In Memory of W.B. Yeats’ describes Yeats’s death in January 1939, culminating in: ‘The current of his feeling failed: he became his admirers.’ I often think the word should be ‘readers’ rather than ‘admirers’, for as Auden himself … Continue reading
Posted in Edwardian character, Edwardian English, Edwardian literature, Heroism and Adventure, Personal commentary
Tagged British Expeditionary Force, commemoration, comments, For the Fallen, George Calderon, Laurence Binyon, Remembrance Day, Rupert Brooke, The Great War, The Soldier, W.B. Yeats, W.H. Auden, war memorials, World War I
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‘bubbling with wit and good humour’
In a letter to the TLS (9 July 2010) I appealed for unpublished letters or works of George Calderon, but also asked readers to contact me if they had ‘come across references to him in obscure publications’. My thinking was that … Continue reading
Posted in Edwardian character, Edwardian literature, Heroism and Adventure, Personal commentary
Tagged biographies, biography, comments, Dardanelles, Fort Brockhurst, Gallipoli, George Calderon, Grenadier Guards, Helen Peel, Heneage, Kittie Calderon, Michael Davidson, Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry, Robert Peel, The Great War, Third Battle of Krithia, Times Literary Supplement, World War I
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Some ‘announcements’
I am staggered that my Introduction has passed its latest grilling, been tweaked yet again, and finalised as version 8. Deep down, though, I know I can’t write this sort of thing. To quote another favourite tag of Chekhovians, from Three … Continue reading
Posted in Edwardian character, Edwardian literature, Modern parallels, Personal commentary
Tagged Anton Chekhov, biographies, biography, Calderonia, Clare Hopkins, comments, George Calderon, Grant Richards, guest posts, Harvey Pitcher, Laurence Senelick, Three Sisters, Times Literary Supplement, Trinity College Oxford, William Lyon Phelps
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Holroyd on biography
Whenever I re-read my typescript, I check the sources for a few facts or assertions chosen at random. The last time I was re-reading, one of the assertions that struck me as needing checking was that Augustus John had been … Continue reading
One does the hokey cokey
I said in my post of 6 October (nearly two months ago!) that I was ‘fired up to put the last tittle on my biography by the end of November’, which meant in the first instance writing the Afterword (‘Who … Continue reading
Posted in Edwardian character, Edwardian literature, Heroism and Adventure, Personal commentary, Uncategorized
Tagged 'real time', Afterword, biographies, biography, chronotopia, comments, eschatology, finishing, George Calderon, hokey cokey, Introduction, John Polkinghorne, Kittie Calderon, Len Goodman, writer's block
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A letter to the ‘Manchester Guardian’, 12 May 1919
Sir, — The recent notice in the “Times” of George Calderon’s death in battle on Gallipoli tells his friends that they may hope no longer. To us the loss is inexpressible. That which the theatre has suffered cannot, of course, … Continue reading
Posted in Edwardian character, Edwardian English, Edwardian literature, Heroism and Adventure, Personal commentary
Tagged Annie Horniman, comments, Dardanelles, Gaiety Theatre Manchester, Gallipoli, George Calderon, Manchester Guardian, Manchester Repertory Company, military interpreters, obituaries, Percy Lubbock, Royal Horse Guards, The Blues, The Great War, The Times, Third Battle of Krithia, William Caine, World War I, Ypres
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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 →