Category Archives: Edwardian literature

50 years of ‘small publishing’: what has it taught me?

Posted on October 21, 2024 by Patrick Miles

It has turned out that since Musk took over Twitter we cannot, after all, post our own Calderonia Tweets at the bottom of the Subscribe, Categories, Comments etc column on the right of the home page — though we can, … Continue reading →

Posted in Edwardian character, Edwardian English, Edwardian literature, Edwardian marriage, Heroism and Adventure, Personal commentary | Tagged anniversaries, bibliographic rarities, biographies, books, editors, Elon Musk, George Calderon, George Calderon: Edwardian Genius, Nikolai Berdiaev, profit and loss, publishing, quality, Russia, Russo-Ukrainian War, Sam&Sam, samizdat, selfie publishing, small publishers, Sofia Koulomzina, Twitter, Ukraine | Leave a comment

George Calderon: A complete new work surfaces

Posted on March 4, 2024 by Patrick Miles

Garry Humphreys, author of a forthcoming book on Arthur Somervell (1863-1937), and I have now received from the archives of the Royal College of Music a link to the score of Somervell’s music for George’s ballet libretto The Blue Cloth (which … Continue reading →

Posted in Edwardian character, Edwardian English, Edwardian literature, Heroism and Adventure, Personal commentary | Tagged Arthur Somervell, ballet, ballet libretti, Ballets Russes, Garry Humphreys, George Calderon, Heathland Lodge, Kittie Calderon, manuscripts, Martin Shaw, Michel Fokine, Moscow Art Theatre, Moscow Arts, musical score, Royal College of Music, stagecraft, The Blue Cloth, The Brave Little Tailor, The Great War, The Red Cloth, Well Walk, William Caine, World War I, Ypres | Leave a comment

A stunning discovery

Posted on January 15, 2024 by Patrick Miles

Mr Garry Humphreys is writing a major book about the English composer Arthur Somervell (1863-1937), as well as compiling a catalogue raisonné of Somervell’s compositions. On 6 September last year he emailed me to ask whether I thought a typescript … Continue reading →

Posted in Edwardian character, Edwardian English, Edwardian literature, Personal commentary | Tagged 'Scheherazade', Abu Nâsi, Arthur Somervell, ballet, Ballets Russes, biographies, biography, cartoons, comments, Dardanelles, Gallipoli, Garry Humphreys, George Calderon, George Calderon: Edwardian Genius, Heathland Lodge, Islam, John Pym, Kittie Calderon, Konstantin Stanislavsky, Michel Fokine, Middle East, mimodramas, Moscow Arts Theatre, The Blue Cloth, The Great War, The Red Cloth, Third Battle of Krithia, Vsevolod Meyerhold, Well Walk, World War I, Ypres | Leave a comment

Guest post by John Pym: Henry James’s ‘The Death of the Lion’

Posted on May 1, 2023 by Patrick Miles

An unnamed young Englishman, a lowly journalist with literary ambition, begins to tell a story (cast in the form of ‘meagre’ private notes): the author Neil Paraday is recuperating at home in the country from a grave illness; he’s published … Continue reading →

Posted in Edwardian character, Edwardian English, Edwardian literature, Modern parallels, Personal commentary | Tagged 'Terminations', 'The Altar of the Dead', 'The Death of the Lion', comments, commissioning editors, Frank Harris, gender, George Calderon, gossip columnists, Henry James, I. Zangwill, John Pym, journalism, Kittie Calderon, Leon Edel, literary hostesses, literary life, literary salons, literature, magazines, manuscripts, Neil Paraday, Peety, Phil May, pseudonyms, Scribner's Magazine, short stories, The Tatler, The Yellow Book, William Heinemann | 2 Comments

From the diary of a writer-publisher: 21

Posted on February 6, 2023 by Patrick Miles

7 January Almost themed, one could say, in Calderonia, Cambridge academic Ruth Scurr has written a meaty review in today’s Spectator of Claire Harman’s experiment in biography All Sorts of Lives: Katherine Mansfield and the Art of Risking Everything. Anyone who writes … Continue reading →

Posted in Edwardian literature, Personal commentary | Tagged Alexander Vampilov, Anton Chekhov, armaments, baseline studies, biodiversity, biographies, biography, birds, Bottengoms Fram, butterflies, Calderonia, Cambridge, Cambridge City Council, Cambridge Theatre Company, Church of England, Church Times, Claire Harman, claustrophobia, Clays of Bungay, comments, conservation, cyber warfare, death, ecosystems, entrapment, Erich Ludendorff, Francis Kilvert, funerals, General Douglas Haig, General Foch, ghosts, hackers, Henry Vaughan, Ice Cold in Alex, James Miles, John Constable, Katherine Mansfield, last, Last Summer in Chulimsk, Next to Nature, paranoia, Peter Hall, Ronald Blythe, Russia, Ruth Scurr, Sam&Sam, security certificates, servers, short stories, Siberia, Spring Offensive 1918, Suffolk, Sylvia Syms, T.S. Eliot, The Great War, The Spectator, The Times, The Web, Tree Belt, Ukraine, Victim, wildlife, wildlife corridors, wildlife havens, World War I | Leave a comment

Was there an ‘Edwardian Age’, and was it ‘great’?

Posted on November 14, 2022 by Patrick Miles

When I began to read George and Kittie Calderon’s archive for my biography of them both, I little thought I would be drawn deeper and deeper into the question of ‘Edwardianism’. Yet I instantly felt as I read George’s letters … Continue reading →

Posted in Edwardian character, Edwardian English, Edwardian literature, Edwardian marriage, Modern parallels, Personal commentary | Tagged Adrian Gregory, Alison Miles, Bertrand Russell, Carolean Age, Charles III, chauvinism, comments, culturonomics, D.H. Lawrence, Damian Grant, Dardanelles, Diana Princess of Wales, Edward VII, Edwardianism, Elizabeth I, Elizabeth II, Ephraim Parker Oakes, Gallipoli, George Calderon, George Calderon: Edwardian Genius, George VI, Georgian Age, H.G. Wells, Henry James, John Pym, Kittie Calderon, Laurence Brockliss, Maria Page, Mesopotamia, New Elizabethan Age, Oliver Moody, Peter Brent, PTSD, Queen Victoria, Robert Baden-Powell, The Great War, Tony Blair, Trinity College Oxford, William Page, World War I, Ypres | 2 Comments

Guest post by Damian Grant: D.H. Lawrence’s ‘Odour of Chrysanthemums’

Posted on October 31, 2022 by Patrick Miles

‘All feelings belong to the body, and are only recognized by the mind.’ This statement by Lawrence can be taken as a categorical refutation of another manner of presenting human beings in fiction, one which was touched on by Patrick … Continue reading →

Posted in Edwardian character, Edwardian English, Edwardian literature, Edwardian marriage | Tagged 'Odour of Chrysanthemums', A Propos of 'Lady Chatterley's Lover', chrysanthemums, coal mines, D.H. Lawrence, Elizabeth Bates, George Eliot, Henry James, Michael Bell, miners, mining disasters, Patrick Miles, psychology, the body, The Engolish Novel, The Prussian Officer and Other Stories, The Rainbow, The Widowing of Mrs Holroyd, Walter Bates, Women in Love, World War I | 6 Comments

Henry James: Edwardian writer par excellence?

Posted on October 17, 2022 by Patrick Miles

No series of posts about the ‘Edwardian Era’ would be complete without a reference to Henry James, often regarded as its greatest novelist. I have always admired his short stories. I have read ‘Daisy Miller’ every few years since 1974 … Continue reading →

Posted in Edwardian character, Edwardian English, Edwardian literature, Edwardian marriage, Personal commentary | Tagged A Room with a View, Acton Reynald, affluence, Ann Veronica, Anton Chekhov, Battle of the Somme, Cambridge Daily News, Coal Strike 1912, comments, conscience, Daisy Miller, Dardanelles, dialogue, E.M. Forster, ethics, F.R. Leavis, Gallipoli, George Calderon, George Calderon: Edwardian Genius, H.G. Wells, Henry James, human body, Joseph Conrad, journalism, Kittie Calderon, Lady Corbet, Lady with a Little Dog, Laurence Brockliss, loquaciousness, mobility, morality, Mudie's Library, Nina Corbet, novels, psychology, renunciation, sex life, short stories, Tahiti, The Ambassadors, The Edwardian Era, The Edwardians, The Great War, The Lady with the Little Dog, The Wings of the Dove, travel, What Maisie Knew, World War I | 2 Comments

Guest post by Laurence Brockliss: In Search of the Edwardians

Posted on September 26, 2022 by Patrick Miles

Since the beginning of recorded time, chroniclers and historians have used the reigns of princely houses and individual monarchs, and later the periods of office of presidents and political leaders, as a framing device to bring a semblance of order … Continue reading →

Posted in Edwardian character, Edwardian English, Edwardian literature, Edwardian marriage, Personal commentary | Tagged affluence, Aileen Alison Furse, Barnes Wallis, Butskellism, Charles Darwin, Edward Baines, edward Stephen Gladstone Wickham, Edward VII, Edwardian Age, Edwardian Era, Elisabeth Wicksteed, Elizabeth II, Frogmore, George Gissing, George Orwell, George V, George VI, Great Depression, H.G. Wells, Harold Ayde Prichard, Ireland, John Stanhope Baines, Joseph Kentigern Haydon, Kim Philby, Labour Party, Leeds, Leeds Mercury, Leeds Philosophical and Literary Society, Percival Tookey Leigh, Peterloo, poverty, Queen Victoria, The Edwardians, The Lusitania, Victorian Era, Welfare State, William Ewart Gladstone, World War I | 1 Comment

George Calderon’s New Drama

Posted on September 5, 2022 by Patrick Miles

Naturally, my foray into short videos had to end with one about George. I suddenly thought that although the contribution of his own plays to Edwardian ‘New Drama’ is now largely forgotten, one could claim that Chekhov’s plays, which he … Continue reading →

Posted in Edwardian character, Edwardian English, Edwardian literature, Edwardian marriage, Heroism and Adventure, Personal commentary | Tagged Anton Chekhov, biographies, biography, comments, Constance Garnett, Dardanelles, Gallipoli, George Bernard Shaw, George Calderon, George Calderon: Edwardian Genius, Glasgow Repertory Theatre, Granville Barker, John Galsworthy, Khodynka Disaster, Khodynka Field, Kittie Calderon, New Drama, Oxford, Oxford Playhouse, Pedro Calderón de la Barca, politics, Russia, St John Hankin, Tahiti, The Cherry Orchard, The Fountain, The Great War, The Seagull, Third Battle of Krithia, William Shakespeare, World War I | Leave a comment

Guest post by John Pym: Games Ancient and Modern

Posted on August 22, 2022 by Patrick Miles

An eight-minute video, La Roue, No. 29, in the series ‘Children’s Games’ by the artist Francis Alÿs: A barefoot boy in a green and yellow football shirt and red shorts – the colours of the Congo national football team – … Continue reading →

Posted in Edwardian character, Edwardian English, Edwardian literature, Edwardian marriage, Modern parallels, Personal commentary | Tagged 'Children's Games', A Room with a View, bicycles, Brasted, Brigadier-General Sir John Gough V.C., bumble puppy, card games, Carol Taylor, croquet, E.M. Forster, Etoile copper mine, Evey Pym, Foxwold, Francis Alÿs, Frank Calderon, games, George Calderon, golf, gun cabinet, guns, horses, Hoyle's Rules, Jack Pym, James Ivory, John Pym, Kittie Calderon, La Roue, Lubumbashi, Mahjong, Mampala, Merchant Ivory Productions, Mia Fothergill, Minnie Beebe, play, riding, Roland Pym, Roya Lubbock, Ruth Jhabvala, shooting, Simon Callow, Sir Edmund Backhouse, The Congo, The Great War, The Sacred Lake, tricycle, Up Jenkins, Venice Biennale, Violet Pym, Windy Corner, World War I | 1 Comment

How would I write it now?

Posted on June 30, 2022 by Patrick Miles

Many authors never re-read their own books. One can understand why. Some must feel that it’s not necessary as it can’t change anything (unless the book is about to have an ‘improved’ edition). Others, like George Orwell apparently, simply don’t … Continue reading →

Posted in Edwardian character, Edwardian English, Edwardian literature, Edwardian marriage, Heroism and Adventure, Personal commentary | Tagged 'real time', Archie Ripley, Ashford, biographies, biography, Clare Hopkins, commemoration, comments, Corbet family, Earlham, future biographer, George Calderon, George Calderon: Edwardian Genius, Gerge Orwell, Harvard University, Houghton Library, Kent, Kittie Calderon, Mrs Shapta, Nina Corbet, Percy Lubbock, Professor Rose, publishers, Sam&Sam, The Brave Little Tailor, The Great War, Third Battle of Krithia, William Caine, World War I, Ypres | Leave a comment

The Edwardian Re-turn

Posted on June 4, 2022 by Patrick Miles

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 … Continue reading →

Posted in Edwardian character, Edwardian English, Edwardian literature, Edwardian marriage, Personal commentary | Tagged Antiques Roadshow, BASEES Conference, bellybands, biography, bookmarks, Clays Ltd, Dardanelles, DNA, Edwardian Return, Gallipoli, George Calderon, George Calderon: Edwardian Genius, Greater Germany, Kaiser Wilhelm II, Kittie Calderon, Russo-Ukrainian War, Samuel Hynes, The Great War, Third Battle of Krithia, Ukraine, World War I | Leave a comment

From the diary of a writer-publisher: 17

Posted on March 14, 2022 by Patrick Miles

24 January 2022 I have received several emails commiserating with me over my ‘anxiety’ and ‘nightmares’ about marking examination papers. The writers clearly assume I am Dr Robinson in my story Ghoune — that the story is strictly autobiographical and … Continue reading →

Posted in Edwardian character, Edwardian literature, Personal commentary | Tagged 'Ghoune', 'Sleep and Death', A.J.A. Symons, Alexander I, Amazon, Andrew Tatham, angina, Anton Chekhov, Anton Chekhov: A Short Life, archivists, Baron Corvo, BASEES, BASEES Conference, biographies, biography, birds, butterflies, Cambridge Tales, Carole Angier, Cheshire Cat, Chris Packham, Clays of Bungay, comments, conservation, death, democracy, examinations, Frederick Rolfe, George Calderon, George Calderon: Edwardian Genius, George Sandison, heart attacks, Kittie Calderon, NATO, Niccolo Machiavelli, page margins, printers, RSPB, Sam&Sam, short stories, Speak, Speckled Wood, Taganrog, The Edwardians, The Holocaust, The Quest for Corvo: An Experiment iin Biography, trimming, typesetting, Ukraine, Vladimir Putin, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, W.G. Sebald, W.H. Hudson, Winterwatch | Leave a comment

From the diary of a writer-publisher: 16

Posted on January 6, 2022 by Patrick Miles

17 November 2021 Today at 9.54 a.m. I emailed my 408-line poem Making Icons to the excellent Long Poem Magazine, the only organ in Britain that publishes poems at least 75 lines long. The magazine appears twice a year and November … Continue reading →

Posted in Edwardian character, Edwardian literature, Personal commentary | Tagged 'Making Icons', Academe, Adolf Hitler, Amazon, anti-Semitism, Anton Chekhov, Anton Chekhov: A Short Life, Aryan myth, BASEES Conference, biographies, butterflies, Cambridge Tales, Christmas, chrysanthemums, Congress for the History of Religions, cut flowers, Dreyfus Affair, ethnology, George Calderon, Ghoune/White Bow, holly, ivy, Japan, Jesus Christ, Jewish people, Long Poem Magazine, marketing, Nazis, Norman Cohn, Okhranka, Protocols of the Elders of Zion, religion, robins, Robinson College, Sam&Sam, spotted laurel, Tar-Baby, Twelfth Night, Warrant for Genocide, Yalta | 2 Comments

A new photograph of George Calderon

Posted on September 1, 2021 by Patrick Miles

Whilst sorting his family papers, Mr John Pym recently found the photograph below, which undoubtedly shows George Calderon on the right. It is a contact print of a photograph, obviously not in sharp focus, which Mr Pym and I believe … Continue reading →