I hope you will forgive my pun on the title of one of the seminal works about the Edwaaaardian (as they pronounced it) era, Samuel Hynes’s The Edwardian Turn of Mind.
A hundred and seven years ago today, at just after noon, George Calderon was killed in the Third Battle of Krithia. One day in the future, I imagine, DNA will enable forensic scientists to say which of the 2226 graves of unidentified servicemen at Twelve Tree Copse Cemetery on the Gallipoli Peninsula contains George’s remains.
I shall observe a two-minute silence and raise a glass today in George’s memory and to honour his self-sacrifice in the war against Kaiser Wilhelm II’s demented project of a Greater Germany — a self-sacrifice that robbed the British theatre of such a promising playwright and nearly destroyed his wife Kittie.
It was a slightly unnerving coincidence to receive the copies of my biography George Calderon: Edwardian Genius from Clays, the printers, at just after noon on 4 June 2018. Sam&Sam now have 131 copies left, and are about to embark on what may be our last marketing surge to reduce that number to a core which will only be sold at their full retail price of £30. Thirty were earmarked for Russianists at the 2022 BASEES Conference, which we could not attend because of the invasion of Ukraine, but I would be happy to offer those to followers of Calderonia with the same discount, i.e. priced at £20. We also have left nine pristine copies with their original claret bellyband and bookmark as from the printer on 4 June 2018. Judging from Antiques Roadshow, I should price these copies now at £50. If you would like to buy copies at these two prices, please contact me at mail@patrickmiles.co.uk. Postage will be free.
For a variety of reasons, it seems appropriate to return for a few months to the original Edwardian theme of Calderonia. I haven’t read my biography from cover to cover since 2018, so I shall do that (with trepidation) and my reactions will form the subject of our first Edwardian Return post. There will also be guest posts, and the series will be interrupted from time to time to comment on the war and other issues.
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SOME RESPONSES TO GEORGE CALDERON: EDWARDIAN GENIUS
‘This meticulous yet nimble book is bound to remain the definitive account of Calderon’s life’ Charlotte Jones, The Times Literary Supplement
‘The effort of detection, it must be said, was worth it. The biography is a delight to read.’ Emeritus Professor Laurence Brockliss, The London Magazine
‘It is a masterly synthesis of your own approach with scholarship and very judicious discussion of the evidence.’ Emeritus Professor Catherine Andreyev, historian
‘This comprehensive, meticulously researched and highly readable biography, which the author describes as a “story” rather than an academic biography…’ Michael Pursglove, East-West Review
‘A monumental scholarly masterpiece that gives real insight into how the Edwardians viewed the world.’Arch Tait, Translator of Natalya Rzhevskaya’s Memoirs of a Wartime Interpreter
‘The book is written with great assurance and the reader always feels in safe hands. I liked the idea of it being a story and I read it the same way I would read a novel.’ Harvey Pitcher, writer
‘Presents the Edwardian age, and Calderon in particular, as new and forward-looking.’ Emeritus Professor Michael Alexander, in Trinity College, Oxford, Report 2017-18
A review by DAMIAN GRANT appears in the comments to Calderonia’s 7 September post.
A review by JOHN DEWEY appears on Amazon UK.
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Book sent to George Calderon in Russia by his mother, Christmas 1895.
Michel and Vera Fokine in “Scheherazade”, 1914 (The Music And Theatre Library of Sweden, creative commons)
Captain of the 11
The entrance to Fort Brockhurst (picture from Britain’s Past)
Monarch Butterfly Madeira
Frontis piece by Frank Calderon
George Calderon, 1912
George and Kittie Calderon 1905
Colonel Sir Walter Coote Hedley c. 1920
K.N. Das Gupta and Margaret Mitchell in an Indian Dramatic Society production of The Maharani of Arakan, 1913?
Patrick Miles in his summer house, 11 December 2016
Jean Ryckaert, May 1916.
Christmas 1901 Cartoon by George Calderon
George Calderon c.1901
A happy memory of Trinity College: undergraduates breakfast together in Downy V. Green, p. 77.
Basic form of the Calderon coat of arms
Unpublished watercolour by George Calderon, Tahiti 1906
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 Edwardian Re-turn
I hope you will forgive my pun on the title of one of the seminal works about the Edwaaaardian (as they pronounced it) era, Samuel Hynes’s The Edwardian Turn of Mind.
A hundred and seven years ago today, at just after noon, George Calderon was killed in the Third Battle of Krithia. One day in the future, I imagine, DNA will enable forensic scientists to say which of the 2226 graves of unidentified servicemen at Twelve Tree Copse Cemetery on the Gallipoli Peninsula contains George’s remains.
I shall observe a two-minute silence and raise a glass today in George’s memory and to honour his self-sacrifice in the war against Kaiser Wilhelm II’s demented project of a Greater Germany — a self-sacrifice that robbed the British theatre of such a promising playwright and nearly destroyed his wife Kittie.
It was a slightly unnerving coincidence to receive the copies of my biography George Calderon: Edwardian Genius from Clays, the printers, at just after noon on 4 June 2018. Sam&Sam now have 131 copies left, and are about to embark on what may be our last marketing surge to reduce that number to a core which will only be sold at their full retail price of £30. Thirty were earmarked for Russianists at the 2022 BASEES Conference, which we could not attend because of the invasion of Ukraine, but I would be happy to offer those to followers of Calderonia with the same discount, i.e. priced at £20. We also have left nine pristine copies with their original claret bellyband and bookmark as from the printer on 4 June 2018. Judging from Antiques Roadshow, I should price these copies now at £50. If you would like to buy copies at these two prices, please contact me at mail@patrickmiles.co.uk. Postage will be free.
For a variety of reasons, it seems appropriate to return for a few months to the original Edwardian theme of Calderonia. I haven’t read my biography from cover to cover since 2018, so I shall do that (with trepidation) and my reactions will form the subject of our first Edwardian Return post. There will also be guest posts, and the series will be interrupted from time to time to comment on the war and other issues.
ADVERTISEMENT
SOME RESPONSES TO GEORGE CALDERON: EDWARDIAN GENIUS
‘This meticulous yet nimble book is bound to remain the definitive account of Calderon’s life’ Charlotte Jones, The Times Literary Supplement
‘The effort of detection, it must be said, was worth it. The biography is a delight to read.’ Emeritus Professor Laurence Brockliss, The London Magazine
‘It is a masterly synthesis of your own approach with scholarship and very judicious discussion of the evidence.’ Emeritus Professor Catherine Andreyev, historian
‘This comprehensive, meticulously researched and highly readable biography, which the author describes as a “story” rather than an academic biography…’ Michael Pursglove, East-West Review
‘A monumental scholarly masterpiece that gives real insight into how the Edwardians viewed the world.’Arch Tait, Translator of Natalya Rzhevskaya’s Memoirs of a Wartime Interpreter
‘The book is written with great assurance and the reader always feels in safe hands. I liked the idea of it being a story and I read it the same way I would read a novel.’ Harvey Pitcher, writer
‘Presents the Edwardian age, and Calderon in particular, as new and forward-looking.’ Emeritus Professor Michael Alexander, in Trinity College, Oxford, Report 2017-18
A review by DAMIAN GRANT appears in the comments to Calderonia’s 7 September post.
A review by JOHN DEWEY appears on Amazon UK.
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