Jean Ryckaert, May 1916.
Book sent to George Calderon in Russia by his mother, Christmas 1895.
Christmas 1901 Cartoon by George Calderon
Unpublished watercolour by George Calderon, Tahiti 1906
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
Captain of the 11
George Calderon, 1912
K.N. Das Gupta and Margaret Mitchell in an Indian Dramatic Society production of The Maharani of Arakan, 1913?
Monarch Butterfly Madeira
George Calderon c.1901
Michel and Vera Fokine in “Scheherazade”, 1914 (The Music And Theatre Library of Sweden, creative commons)
Frontis piece by Frank Calderon
Basic form of the Calderon coat of arms
The entrance to Fort Brockhurst (picture from Britain’s Past)
Patrick Miles in his summer house, 11 December 2016
Colonel Sir Walter Coote Hedley c. 1920
A happy memory of Trinity College: undergraduates breakfast together in Downy V. Green, p. 77.
George and Kittie Calderon 1905Recent Comments
- Jim D G Miles on From the diary of a writer-publisher: 28 Excellent entry, Dad. I like the escape room picture, of course, but the story about the Russian and the hole-in-the-wall is exceptional! (28/03/2024 at 9:58 PM)
- Patrick Miles on Short story: ‘Crox’ Thank you, dear anonymous Theo...it is so refreshing to hear the reaction of a Man of the People! Keep a good grip on those cords! 'Part II'?! The rest is secreted in lines (18/12/2023 at 10:33 PM)
- Theo on Short story: ‘Crox’ Delicious! "Are you being Served?" meets "Keeping up Appearances" via Calderotica. But Patrick, you cannot leave us dangling like that just before Christmas! One thing - c (18/12/2023 at 1:35 PM)
- Patrick Miles on Cambridge Tales 8: ‘Black Tie’ Thank you, Damian, for sharing your problem with us. It's difficult to know what to prescribe. Perhaps try examining the facts of the story (e.g. there are not 6 medics in the (20/11/2023 at 9:44 AM)
- Damian Grant on Cambridge Tales 8: ‘Black Tie’ Patrick: I read your story 'Black Tie' on Monday, and knew immediately that it didn't work for me. There was something forced, factitious; something that didn't let the elemen (17/11/2023 at 2:26 PM)
Tag Archives: George Calderon
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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‘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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Weighty Calderonian matters
The above is described in an auction catalogue of 2001 as ‘A Victorian set of jockey scales by Youngs of Bear Street, London WC on oak stand with spiral-turned supports. Width 3ft’. The auction in question was of ‘The Residual Contents … Continue reading
Posted in Edwardian character, Edwardian English, Edwardian literature, Edwardian marriage, Personal commentary
Tagged A Room with a View, Anstey Guthrie, biographies, biography, body weight, Boulogne, Catherine Lubbock, Charles Evelyn Pym, Christopher Tebb, comments, Daniel Day Lewis, Dr Albert Tebb, E.M. Forster, Emmetts, Foxwold, Frederic Lubbock, George Calderon, height, Horace Pym, John Pym, Kittie Calderon, R. Ruthven Pym, Violet Pym, visitors books, weighing machine, weighing machines, Windy Corner
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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
Posted in Personal commentary
Tagged BASEES Conference, biographies, comments, coronavirus, COVID-19, George Calderon, George Calderon: Edwardian Genius, Harvey Pitcher, John Polkinghorne, marketing, Moscow, pandemics, publishing, Robinson College, Russianists, sales, Sam&Sam, Slavists, What Can We Hope For?
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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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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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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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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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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 →