K.N. Das Gupta and Margaret Mitchell in an Indian Dramatic Society production of The Maharani of Arakan, 1913?
Unpublished watercolour by George Calderon, Tahiti 1906
The entrance to Fort Brockhurst (picture from Britain’s Past)
Sir Richard Vincent Sutton c. 1913
A happy memory of Trinity College: undergraduates breakfast together in Downy V. Green, p. 77.
Christmas 1901 Cartoon by George Calderon
Colonel Sir Walter Coote Hedley c. 1920
Figure from Gauguin’s 1899 painting ‘Tahitian Women with Mango Blossoms’ (left); George Calderon’s pencil sketch ‘Manu’ (right)
Book sent to George Calderon in Russia by his mother, Christmas 1895.
George Calderon c.1901
Frontis piece by Frank Calderon
George and Kittie Calderon 1905
Patrick Miles in his summer house, 11 December 2016
Michel and Vera Fokine in “Scheherazade”, 1914 (The Music And Theatre Library of Sweden, creative commons)
Basic form of the Calderon coat of arms
Jean Ryckaert, May 1916.
Monarch Butterfly Madeira
Captain of the 11
George Calderon, 1912Recent Comments
- Catherine Brown on The diary of a writer-publisher: 38 Thank you so much for this wonderful recollection of Mr Prynne. In case of interest, my own, which concerns Prynne in the 1990s, is here:... (May 21, 2026 at 11:20 am)
- harvey pitcher on The diary of a writer-publisher: 37 well, i had a shock when you said you'd acquired a dog but then i saw it wasn't. i have nothing against dogs though i prefer cats but fiona is very opposed to dogs or rather... (April 15, 2026 at 4:35 pm)
- Laurence Brockliss on A new story by John Melmoth: ‘Snowballs’ What a pitch perfect short story: crisp, graphic, nostalgic, evocative and mischievous. The injustice of schoolboy punishments comes in many forms, is never forgotten and is... (March 10, 2026 at 10:09 am)
- Patrick Miles on The diary of a writer-publisher: 36 Wonderful, Andrew! Thank you very much. I will borrow that title, if you don't object... I hope you will allow Calderonia to feature your own next magnum opus after the Great... (February 28, 2026 at 8:18 am)
- Andrew Tatham on The diary of a writer-publisher: 36 A brilliantly evocative and thought-provoking medley of observations that would not be out of place in 'The collected life of a flat-cap penguin' (your words, only slightly... (February 27, 2026 at 9:48 am)
Category Archives: Personal commentary
From the diary of a writer-publisher: 12
26 September Today I suddenly realised what life under Black Crow reminds me of: living in the Soviet Union. It would be unfair to compare Britain at the moment to the view from a window in Moscow University’s Stalinist hostel … Continue reading
Posted in Personal commentary
Tagged advertisements, Andrew Tatham, Bashō, chrysanthemums, comments, coronavirus, COVID-19, dahlias, depression, freedom, garden gnomes, indie publishing, John Dewey, mental health, Moscow, Moscow State University, pandemic, psychosis, Reaktion Books, Rose Tremaine, Sam&Sam, Sam2, self-publishing, Times Literary Supplement, Twigs Way, USSR
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John Baines: exemplar of a young officer
‘Exemplar’, not ‘exemplary’, because John Stanhope Baines, son of the Herbert Stanhope Baines who features in Laurence Brockliss’s recent guest post, would not have wanted anyone to regard him as an exemplary young officer of World War I. When he … Continue reading
Posted in Edwardian character, Edwardian marriage, Heroism and Adventure, Personal commentary
Tagged Andrew Baines, Armistice, Austro-Hungary, Baines dynasty, Belgium, British Expeditionary Force, Bulgaria, Dearest Mother, Elisabeth Wicksteed, Elizabeth Baines, Erich Ludendorff, Gallipoli, George Calderon, Germany, Greece, Helion, Herbert Stanhope Baines, Honor Baines, Joanna Palmer, John Baines, Laurence Brockliss, Macedonia, Raphael Kirchner, roadmaking, Royal Engineers, Salonika, Sappers, The Great War, The Leeds Mercury, The Times, Turkey, Winchester College, Windsor Spring Festival, World War I, Ypres
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‘We need each other…’
John Polkinghorne, physicist, priest, Fellow of the Royal Society and Founding President of the International Society for Science and Religion, will be 90 on 16 October. Patrick Miles recently interviewed him by Skype in his care home. Patrick Miles: Our … Continue reading
Posted in Personal commentary
Tagged birthdays, care homes, Charles Darwin, Charles Dickens, Charles Kingsley, Christianity, Church of England, church services, coronavirus, COVID-19, earthquakes, evolution, God, International Society for Science and Religion, Jane Austen, John Polkinghorne, music, New Testament, Origin of Species, pandemic, plate tectonics, Prayer Book, reading, Sam&Sam, science, social work, Templeton Prize, theodicy, theology, viruses, What Can We Hope For?
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Guest Post: Laurence Brockliss, ‘George Calderon and the Demographic Revolution’
George Calderon married Kittie shortly before his thirty-second birthday. For a professional man at the turn of the twentieth century, this was not an uncommon age to wed. For the last ten years I have been leading a cross-generational study … Continue reading
Posted in Edwardian character, Edwardian literature, Edwardian marriage, Modern parallels, Personal commentary
Tagged Aileen Alison Furse, Archie Ripley, Baines dynasty, biographies, birth rate, Cambridge Scool of Historical Demography, Charlotte Talbot, Clara Calderon, Demographic Revolution, Edward Baines Junior, Edward Baines Senior, Edward VII, Elizabeth Graham, George Armand Furse, George Calderon, George Gissing, Gonville and Caius College, grammar schools, Hazel Louisa Furse, Herbert Stanhope Baines, infant mortality, J.A. Banks, Jim Corbet, John William Baines, Kim Philby, Kittie Calderon, Leeds, Leeds Mercury, Liberal Party, marriage, New Grub Street, Nina Astley, Nina Corbet, professional class, prosopography, prostitution, public schools, Sir Roland James Corbet, The Great War, Victorian professions, Wilfred Owen, William Jackson, World War I
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Guest post: Andrew Tatham, ‘A Group Photograph and the Pursuit of Personal History’
If there’s anything to be learned from biography it is that chance meetings can change lives. I first met Patrick Miles next to the warmth of the Aga in my cousin’s kitchen in 2006. I had met many of my … Continue reading
Posted in Heroism and Adventure, Modern parallels, Personal commentary
Tagged A Group Photograph, Andrew Tatham, art films, Battle of Passchendaele, Belgium, biographies, biography, British Expeditionary Force, Cyril Kingerlee, Elaine Kingerlee, exhibitions, George Calderon, George Calderon: Edwardian Genius, Gyles Brandreth, history, I Shall Not Be Away Long, Jeremy Vine, John Carey, Keith Simpson MP, Martin Middlebrook, Melvyn Bragg, Norfolk Open Studios, Passchendaele, Patrick Miles, Stephen Lucena, The Great War, William Boyd, World War I, Ypres
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Guest Post: John Pym, ‘The Soldier, the Professor and the Portrait Photographer’
(A reminiscence with Calderonian associations) Once, when I was a boy in the 1950s, my mother led me to a large mansion block in Kensington, West London, so she could introduce me to her last surviving uncle, Hubert Gough, a … Continue reading
Posted in Edwardian character, Edwardian literature, Heroism and Adventure, Personal commentary
Tagged Albert Einstein, Alfred Kerr, Alliance Française, Alphabetical French-English List of Technical Military terms for Military Students, An Ethical System Based on the Laws of Nature, Anne Gough, Bernard Simon, Brigadier-General Sir John Edmond Gough, Charles Gough, Chelsea Home Guard, comments, Constance Cummings, Dardanelles, David Lloyd George, Diana Pym, Dictionary of Difficulties, Erich Ludendorff, Fauquissart, Fifth Army, Gallipoli, General Antoine, General Foch, General Sir Hubert Gough, George Calderon, George Franckenstein, George VI, Gertrud Cohn, Gerty Simon, Hubert Gough, Jack Pym, Jocelyn Herbert, John Pym, Johnnie Gough, Judith Kerr, Käthe Kollwitz, Kenneth Clark, Kittie Calderon, Kurt Weill, Langton Green, Lottle Lenya, Marius Deshumbert, Norman Stone, Passchendaele, Peggy Ashcroft, Sir John Lavery, Soldiering On, Staff College, The Blitz, The Great War, The Wiener Library, Tunbridge Wells, Valentine Gough, Violet Lubbock, Wilhelm Simon, William Rothenstein, World War I
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Fit for purpose, then?
Some of my friends feel that I suffer from Low Frustration Tolerance (‘Foot Stuck on Indignation Pedal’, one calls it). They may be right, but I think Karl Popper would agree with me that you can’t improve the design of … Continue reading
Posted in Personal commentary
Tagged accessions, acquisitions, archival management, archives, archivists, British archives, Cambridge University Library, cataloguing, Clare Hopkins, conservation, curation, customer care, fitness for purpose, France, George Calderon, Germany, guest posts, John Pym, Karl Popper, Kittie Calderon, Leeds Russian Archive, Liddell Hart Military Archives, line management, Low Frustration Tolerance, management consultants, Oxbridge college archives, safeguarding, Sandwich, St Petersburg, Sweden, SWOT analysis, Taganrog, The Bodleian Library, The British Library, The Imperial War Museum, The Women's Library Archive, Theatre Museum Collections V&A, Torquay Library, Trinity College Oxford
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‘Spectator’
SAVE IT FOR THE (AMERICAN) NATION! How British archives fail us Patrick Miles It was a biographer’s dream. For decades Russianists had searched in vain for the archive of George Calderon, top Edwardian Slavist and the man who brought Chekhov’s … Continue reading
Posted in Edwardian literature, Personal commentary
Tagged American archives, Anton Chekhov, archivists, attics, auction houses, bequests, Bernard Quaritch Ltd, Bertram Rota Ltd, biographies, biography, British archives, Cambridge University Library, celebrity, comments, cultural heritage, dilettantism, George Calderon, George Calderon: Edwardian Genius, Gertrude Bell, Harold Pinter, Harvard University, Jane Austen, Joseph Conrad, Kittie Calderon, learned helplessness, media image, patrimony, PR, research value, Rupert Brooke, The Bodleian Library, The British Library, The Calderon Papers, The Houghton Library, The Spectator, The Watsons, V. Pokrovskii, vultures, Wendy Cope
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Explanatory notes to ‘Thunderer’
I give here some of the facts from my and my team’s experience that lie behind statements I made in the preceding post, whilst preserving the anonymity of most of the offending institutions because I think to name them would … Continue reading
Posted in Edwardian literature, Heroism and Adventure, Personal commentary
Tagged Aleksandr Anikst, Anglo-Soviet Colloquium 'Chekhov on the British Stage', Anna Sica, Anton Chekhov, archival managers, archive donations, archive sales, Bernard Quaritch Ltd, British archives, Cambridge Modern and Medieval Languages Faculty Library, Cambridge Slavonic Library, Cambridge University Library, cataloguing, Chekhov Centenary Medal, collecting, comments, communication, conservation, customer care, Eleonora Duse, Elizabeth Hill, Gallipoli, George Calderon, Jane Austen, Lucjan Lewitter, Martin Shaw, Mikhail Gorbachev, Murray Edwards College, New Hall, Oleg Efremov, Ray Scrivens, Sotheby's, Special Collections, The Bodleian Library, The Brave Little Tailor, The British Library, The Great War, The Watsons, V. Pokrovskii, William Caine, World War I
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‘Thunderer’
Curate your own stuff – British archives can’t cope PATRICK MILES Thinking of depositing your family papers in a public archive? Be prepared for nobody to answer your emails, promises to be broken, cataloguing never to happen, and to discover … Continue reading
Posted in Edwardian character, Edwardian literature, Heroism and Adventure, Personal commentary
Tagged accountants, Anton Chekhov, archives, archivists, biographies, biography, British archives, cataloguing, celebrity, collecting, comments, conferences, conservation, curation, Dardanelles, exhibitions, funding, Gallipoli, George Calderon, George Calderon: Edwardian Genius, Harold Pinter, Jane Austen, Less Process, Martin Shaw, More Product, PR consultants, The British Library, The Great War, The Watsons, Third Battle of Krithia, United States of America, Wendy Cope, World War I, Ypres
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Health Warning
I have decided I must go public about the nine years of frustration that the owner of the Calderon Papers and I endured as we tried to find a permanent home for them in a British archival institution. It was … Continue reading
Posted in Heroism and Adventure, Personal commentary
Tagged 'Thunderer', archival management, archive donations, archive sales, archives, biography, British archives, Calderon Family Papers, Cambridge, cataloguing, comments, communication, conservation, customer care, George Calderon: Edwardian Genius, Harvard University, Kittie Calderon, The Spectator, The Times
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‘People are reading an awful lot…
…and many booksellers are doing mail order,’ writes Susan Hill in The Spectator. I should say they are! Click the prompt at the bottom of this post to buy my blockbuster biography from Sam&Sam while stocks last! Obsessed with self-image, … Continue reading
Posted in Edwardian character, Edwardian English, Edwardian literature, Edwardian marriage, Heroism and Adventure, Modern parallels, Personal commentary
Tagged activism, Anna Karenina, Anton Chekhov, biographies, British Expeditionary Force, Dardanelles, Edward VII, Gallipoli, George Calderon, George Calderon: Edwardian Genius, Kittie Calderon, Middlemarch, New Drama, Nina Corbet, Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry, polymathery, portfolio career, publicity, Russia, Sam&Sam, self-isolation, Susan Hill, Tahiti, The Edwardians, The Great War, The Spectator, Third Battle of Krithia, Times Literary Supplement, World War I, Ypres
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Hello chronotopia old friend..?
‘Life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards’, said Kierkegaard. Regrettably, this is of course true. We are like maggots, chewing our way relentlessly forwards through Time, but we are thinking maggots who constantly need to … Continue reading →