A happy memory of Trinity College: undergraduates breakfast together in Downy V. Green, p. 77.
Sir Richard Vincent Sutton c. 1913
Figure from Gauguin’s 1899 painting ‘Tahitian Women with Mango Blossoms’ (left); George Calderon’s pencil sketch ‘Manu’ (right)
The entrance to Fort Brockhurst (picture from Britain’s Past)
K.N. Das Gupta and Margaret Mitchell in an Indian Dramatic Society production of The Maharani of Arakan, 1913?
George Calderon, 1912
Basic form of the Calderon coat of arms
Colonel Sir Walter Coote Hedley c. 1920
Frontis piece by Frank Calderon
Book sent to George Calderon in Russia by his mother, Christmas 1895.
Patrick Miles in his summer house, 11 December 2016
Jean Ryckaert, May 1916.
Christmas 1901 Cartoon by George Calderon
Captain of the 11
Unpublished watercolour by George Calderon, Tahiti 1906
George Calderon c.1901
Monarch Butterfly Madeira
George and Kittie Calderon 1905
Michel and Vera Fokine in “Scheherazade”, 1914 (The Music And Theatre Library of Sweden, creative commons)Recent Comments
- 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)
- John Pym on The essential Oxford novel Horace Hare’s acid and immensely readable Oxford Confessions deserve to sell even more pleasingly than Yale classicist Erich Segal’s Harvard/Radcliffe smash-hit weepie, Love... (January 29, 2026 at 2:39 pm)
- Graeme Wright on The essential Oxford novel If I may be so bold I'll throw into the Oxford quad Javier Marias's novel, All Souls. Here's a taste, courtesy of Penguin and Amazon: "At High Table in an Oxford College, the... (January 28, 2026 at 12:11 pm)
Category Archives: Personal commentary
Guest Post: John Pym on the film ‘1917’
In my humble opinion, one shouldn’t read too much into 1917 , which is, essentially, a ‘mission movie’ (the mission in this case being to deliver a letter and avert a doomed attack). The mission is very nearly ‘impossible’, and the … Continue reading
Posted in Edwardian character, Heroism and Adventure, Personal commentary
Tagged '1917', American Civil War, Brigadier-General Sir John Gough V.C., Captain Charles Evelyn Pym, commemoration, comments, D.W. Griffiths, films, General Sir Hubert Gough, George Calderon, John Pym, Kittie Calderon, messengers, mission films, production design, reviews, Sam Mendes, The Birth of a Nation, The Great War, trenches, Violet Lubbock, war films, World War I
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Resolution
A VERY HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ALL OUR SUBSCRIBERS, OTHER FOLLOWERS, AND CASUAL VISITORS! 2019 was a good year for Calderonia, with a slight increase in views despite the fact that the book has now been out for sixteen months. … Continue reading
From the diary of a writer-publisher: 6
6 December Our post office is inside the local supermarket, and next to the queue is a stand with all the British newspapers. In an Orwellian spirit of studying what people across the whole political spectrum are thinking, I occasionally … Continue reading
Posted in Personal commentary
Tagged agnosticism, Amazon, And now the coffin has been lowered, biographies, biography, birds, Calderonia, death, East-West Review, eschatology, Fedor Tiutchev, Four Funerals and a Tyutchev Poem, I grob opushchen uz v mogilu, John Dewey, Labour Party, Lutheranism, Mirror of the Soul: A Life of the Poet Tyutchev, Morning Star, obituary, Protestantism, Russianists, self-publishing, translation
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Christmas in St Petersburg, 1895
St Petersburg, 27 December 1895 (N.S.) English Christmas Evening I spent at the Wildings: of the guests were Mr and Mrs Alfred Whishaw, Dick Whishaw (18) and Miss blank Whishaw (say 19); James Whishaw (V.C., not the cross but Vice … Continue reading
Posted in Edwardian character, Edwardian English, Edwardian literature, Personal commentary
Tagged Alfred Whishaw, charades, Charlie Fletcher, Christmas, Clumps, Dick Whishaw, Francke family, George Calderon, icehills, James Whishaw, Julian Calendar, methylated spirits, Miss Whishaw, Mrs Alfred Whishaw, Philip Hermogenes Calderon, plum pudding, skating, St Petersburg, Trinity College Oxford, Turkey, Wylie family
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A signing
Alison baked a perfect Victoria sponge and last Wednesday we took it along for tea with John Polkinghorne and his carer. He likes a nice cake (foregrounded in the photograph below). The five of us had a very lively conversation … Continue reading
Posted in Personal commentary
Tagged Alison Miles, Amazon, book launch, Jim Miles, John Polkinghorne, sales, Sam&Sam, Sam2, signing, tea, typesetting, Victoria sponge, What Can We Hope For?
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Guest Post: Alison Miles on ‘What Can We Hope For?’ from the edge of the epicentre
John Polkinghorne lives near us and we have known him for many years. In 2015 the Church Times published an interview in which he answered questions about science and religion put to him by my husband, Patrick. It celebrated John’s … Continue reading
Posted in Personal commentary
Tagged Alison Miles, Amazon, Amazon UK, Clays of Bungay, cosmology, cover designs, Dialogues about the Future, editing, eschatology, James Miles, Johannes Gutenberg, John Polkinghorne, Kettle's Yard, mathematical physics, Naum Gabo, Patrick Miles, philosophy, Poland, print on demand, proofs, religion, Sam&Sam, science, The Church Times, theology, transcription, voice recording, What Can We Hope For?
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And the exhibition?
The actual exhibition The Rising Tide: Women at Cambridge is one of the best I have seen at the University Library in fifty years. Subsequent to my experience of the PR, I have visited it twice, spending a total of an … Continue reading
Posted in Edwardian character, Edwardian marriage, Modern parallels, Personal commentary
Tagged Agnata Ramsay, Behave Badly, Cambridge University Library, Chrystabel Proctor, Clare College, degrees for women, Elizabeth Hughes, Emily Davies, Emma Thompson, Emmeline Pankhurst, George Calderon, Germaine Greer, Girton College, Joanna Womack, lavatory paper, marketing, Men's League for Opposing Woman Suffrage, Millicent Fawcett, National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies, Newnham College, Philip Snowden, PR, Queen Anne, Sandi Toksvig, suffragettism, suffragism, The Rising Tide: Women at Cambridge, Votes for Women, Women's Social and Political Union
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A stone cries out
I have assiduously avoided expressing my own views about controversial matters on Calderonia, as it is simply not a personal blog in that sense. I am as silent as a stone on such things. Sometimes, however, as someone said, even … Continue reading
Posted in Edwardian character, Modern parallels, Personal commentary
Tagged Anton Chekhov, Behave Badly badges, Cambridge University Library, comments, gender equality, marketing, merchandise, Milstein Exhibition Centre, PR, The Rising Tide: Women at Cambridge, Three Sisters, Votes for Women
2 Comments
From the diary of a writer-publisher: 5
2 October I arrived in St Andrews as the guest of the best owner of a private archive in Britain, who had unfailingly facilitated and nurtured my work on George’s biography over a period of twenty years, and without whom … Continue reading
Posted in Edwardian character, Edwardian literature, Edwardian marriage, Personal commentary
Tagged 'Gone with a Basilisk', Acton Reynald, Anton Chekhov, biographies, biography, Brexit, Cambridge Chekhov Company, Cambridge Festival, comments, Cromwell: Mall o' Monks, Edinburgh Festival, George Calderon, George Calderon: Edwardian Genius, Jim Corbet, Kittie Calderon, Lesbia Corbet, Manya Ross, Nina Corbet, Pall Mall Gazette, Peter the Great, Queen Victoria, Russia, Samuel Hynes, Sir Walter Corbet, St Andrews, St Petersburg, Susan de Guardiola, The Cherry Orchard, The Edwardian Turn of Mind
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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
Posted in Edwardian character, Edwardian English, Edwardian literature, Heroism and Adventure, Personal commentary
Tagged Alexander Pushkin, Alfred Tennyson, Armistice Day, commemoration, comments, Elizabeth Browning, Eric Griffiths, For the Fallen, Freya Johnston, Friedrich Hölderlin, George Calderon, Gerard Manley Hopkins, John Dewey, John Mullan, Laurence Binyon, Patmos, Remembrance Sunday, Robert Browning, The Bronze Horseman, The Great War, Thomas Hardy, Victorian poetry, war poetry, World War I
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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
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A TLS review!!!
I was rendered soundless and motionless last Thursday when a stalwart subscriber emailed to tell me that a full-length review of George Calderon: Edwardian Genius had appeared that morning in The Times Literary Supplement. A Zen moment indeed. For consider: … Continue reading
Posted in Edwardian character, Edwardian English, Edwardian literature, Edwardian marriage, Personal commentary
Tagged Anglo-Russian cultural relations, Anton Chekhov, Ballets Russes, biographies, biography, Calderonia, Charlotte Jones, comments, Constance Garnett, George Calderon, George Calderon: Edwardian Genius, Kittie Calderon, Laurence Binyon, Laurence Sterne, life-writing, modernism, Nina Corbet, Professor Rose of Leipzig, reviews, Russomania, Tahiti, The Seagull, Times Literary Supplement, TLS, Tristram Shandy, William John Rose
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Guest Post: Sam2 on… ‘How to Typeset A Second Book’
The final act of Tarkovsky’s Andrei Rublev concerns a boy and a bell. In this hour-long conclusion to the film, the son of a deceased bellmaker persuades his village that the father bequeathed to him a secret bellmaking recipe. He … Continue reading
Posted in Modern parallels, Personal commentary, Uncategorized
Tagged Amazon, Amazon KDP, Andrei Rublev, Andrei Tarkovsky, biographies, Chris Johnson, Church Times, comments, George Calderon, George Calderon: Edwardian Genius, James Miles, John Polkinghorne, Kindle Direct Publishing, LibreOffice, OpenOffice, Patrick Miles, PDF, publishers, Sam&Sam, Sam1, Sam2, TeX, TeXWorks, typesetting, What Can We Hope For?
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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
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Bloggering on!
It is such a long time since I blogged, that followers would be excused for forgetting why the previous post has been up for five weeks. The reason is that we have been preparing for Sam&Sam’s Moscow-Cambridge stall at the … Continue reading →