George Calderon c.1901
Patrick Miles in his summer house, 11 December 2016
K.N. Das Gupta and Margaret Mitchell in an Indian Dramatic Society production of The Maharani of Arakan, 1913?
Book sent to George Calderon in Russia by his mother, Christmas 1895.
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)
George Calderon, 1912
Frontis piece by Frank Calderon
Captain of the 11
Christmas 1901 Cartoon by George Calderon
Jean Ryckaert, May 1916.
Monarch Butterfly Madeira
Unpublished watercolour by George Calderon, Tahiti 1906
Michel and Vera Fokine in “Scheherazade”, 1914 (The Music And Theatre Library of Sweden, creative commons)
Colonel Sir Walter Coote Hedley c. 1920
Basic form of the Calderon coat of arms
Sir Richard Vincent Sutton c. 1913
George and Kittie Calderon 1905
A happy memory of Trinity College: undergraduates breakfast together in Downy V. Green, p. 77.
Recent Comments
- John Pym on Two anniversaries We are all, followers and occasional contributors, beholden to you, Patrick, for reminding us for ten years that the past is worth remembering and for keeping alive the... (August 17, 2024 at 1:06 pm)
- Patrick Miles on A second Family Bible Very many thanks for fleshing that point out -- and so entertainingly! (I love your reference to creative writing courses, which are a phobia of mine.) Although several... (August 2, 2024 at 11:03 am)
- Laurence Brockliss on A second Family Bible When I say that the British Republic of Letters was dead by 1880, I don't mean to imply that thereafter there were no men and women outside universities, institutes and... (August 2, 2024 at 9:19 am)
- Patrick Miles on A second Family Bible Thank you for devoting valuable time to writing this fascinating Comment. If I may say so, it is awe-inspiring to see the author of a monumental work standing back from that... (July 31, 2024 at 5:32 pm)
- Laurence Brockliss on A second Family Bible Male Professionals in Nineteenth Century Britain was a new departure for me. For most of my adult life I have worked on seventeenth and eighteenth century France. It is also... (July 24, 2024 at 11:31 am)
Category Archives: Personal commentary
Future biographers of George Calderon…
Even at this late stage, ‘things keep coming up’. It took me, as predicted, two pretty full days to input to the text of my biography (167,000 words) the 1000+ corrections and revisions that emerged from my two complete readings … Continue reading
Posted in Edwardian character, Edwardian English, Edwardian literature, Edwardian marriage, Modern parallels, Personal commentary
Tagged Anton Chekhov, biographies, biography, British Library, Christianity, comments, Dardanelles, EPMOS, Gallipoli, George Calderon, Grant Richards, Humanism, Kittie Calderon, Kropotkin, Laurence Binyon, Lydia Yavorskaya, Paul Boyer, Percy Lubbock, Petr Kropotkin, Spinoza, Tahiti, Taoism, The Brave Little Tailor, The Great War, theism, Third Battle of Krithia, William Caine, World War I
2 Comments
From the diary of a countrywoman
In December 1922 Kittie moved from Hampstead with her housekeeper Elizabeth Ellis to ‘Kay’s Crib’, a Victorian three-bedroomed house with a fair amount of ground to it at Sheet, near Petersfield, in Hampshire. She told a friend of Percy Lubbock’s: … Continue reading
Posted in Edwardian character, Edwardian English, Personal commentary
Tagged 'Kay's Crib', Alan Lubbock, biographies, biography, Brasted, Bunty, Captain Charles Evelyn Pym, Captain Gilbert Piggott, Charles Letts's Diary, Clara Calderon, comments, Dardanelles, diary, Eliza Stewart, Elizabeth Ellis, Foxwold, Gallipoli, gardening, George Calderon, Gertrude Corbet, Hampshire, Hampstead, Helen Lubbock, Kittie Calderon, Mrs Stewart of Torquay, Nina Astley, Nina Corbet, Percy Lubbock, Petersfield, Sheet, The Croft, The Great War, Third Battle of Krithia, Torquay, Violet Pym, World War I
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Guest post: John Pym, ‘A bit of fun with Calderon’
On 7 May 2016 Patrick Miles wrote a post on George Calderon and William Caine’s pantomime The Brave Little Tailor in which he reproduced the cover of the published version (1923) and also Caine’s Preface – the first paragraph of … Continue reading
Posted in Edwardian character, Edwardian English, Edwardian literature, Heroism and Adventure, Personal commentary
Tagged Andrew Lang, Anstey Guthrie, biographies, biography, Burglar Bill, Captain Charles Evelyn Pym, Charles Dickens, Cinderella: An Ibsen Pantomime, comments, Emmetts, F. Anstey, Foxwold, fun, George Calderon, Horace Pym, John Pym, Julian Pym, Kittie Calderon, The boy who fought for England, The Brave Little Tailor, Victorian humour, Violet Pym, William Caine
5 Comments
Guest posts on ‘Calderonia’
The next post, which will appear on Monday 15 August, will be by Mr John Pym, son of Jack Pym (1908-93) who featured as a child in my very first post of 30 July 1914 (30 July 2014) and was … Continue reading
Posted in Edwardian character, Edwardian English, Edwardian literature, Heroism and Adventure, Modern parallels, Personal commentary
Tagged Archie Ripley, biographies, biography, Captain Charles Evelyn Pym, comments, Edwardians, Foxwold, fun, George Calderon, guest posts, Jack Pym, John Pym, Kittie Calderon, Victorians, Violet Pym
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‘Solved!’
I am so relieved to have completed the re-hoover of my 165,000-word typescript in six working days — approximately a fifth of the time my disastrous ‘final’ hoover took (see ‘O, fallacem hominum spem!’ of 27 July). I must say, … Continue reading
Posted in Edwardian character, Edwardian marriage, Heroism and Adventure, Modern parallels, Personal commentary
Tagged Afterword, biographies, biography, comments, Downton Abbey, George Calderon, Introduction, introductions, Kittie Calderon, readers, reading public, The Great War, World War I
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Somme: the ‘walking’ controversy
When I read Harvey Pitcher’s Comment of 1 July about the Bishop of London’s address in Westminster Abbey commemorating the eve of the Battle of the Somme, I took it that the Bishop was quoting the order to WALK across … Continue reading
Posted in Edwardian character, Heroism and Adventure, Modern parallels, Personal commentary
Tagged Battle of the Somme, Bishop of London, Clare Hopkins, comments, common sense, Damian Grant, Dardanelles, deserters, Gallipoli, General Douglas Haig, General Henry Rawlinson, Harvey Pitcher, Hugh Sebag Montefiore, Mametz, Military Intelligence, Montauban, Richard Chartres, Stephen Tempest, The Great War, World War I, Ypres
2 Comments
John Hamilton the Good/Great?
At this time one hundred years ago, after the first anniversary of her husband’s disappearance at Gallipoli, Kittie Calderon decided it would be wise to channel her energies into a number of projects. One of these was to erect a memorial … Continue reading
Posted in Edwardian character, Heroism and Adventure, Modern parallels, Personal commentary
Tagged causeway, Dardanelles, democracy, Dermot James, Donegal, Donegal Bay, Eric Gill, Gallipoli, George Calderon, Home Rule, Ireland, James Hamilton, John Hamilton, John Pakenham Hamilton, Kittie Calderon, landlordism, Mary Simson, memorial tablet, Orangemen, Potato Famine, Ribbonmen, St Andrews, St Ernan's, St Ernan's Island, The Great War, World War I
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Archive
In my last post I should have explained that some of my fury at having to check again every quotation and fact in the typescript came from the necessity it entailed of taking scores of manuscripts out of George and … Continue reading
Posted in Edwardian character, Edwardian marriage, Modern parallels, Personal commentary
Tagged Archie Ripley, archives, biographies, biography, camphor, cigarettes, comments, George Calderon, haibun, haikus, Kittie Calderon, Lucknow, manuscripts, patina, roses, smells, The Great War, tuberculosis, World War I
5 Comments
‘O, fallacem hominum spem!’
This tag from Cicero, meaning ‘Oh how deceptive is men’s hope!’, may be heard on the lips of Chekhov buffs when disappointed about something, followed sotto voce by Kulygin’s line: ‘Accusative with exclamation…’ (Act 2, Three Sisters). It is certainly appropriate … Continue reading
‘Old P.H.’
Although I was sceptical about this blog when first persuaded to start it nearly two years ago, I cannot chirp loudly enough about the benefits it has brought the project. There is our amazing follower Katy George, who came upon … Continue reading
Posted in Edwardian character, Modern parallels, Personal commentary
Tagged biography, Bonhams, Captain of the Eleven, Chantrey Bequest, Chantrey Trust, Charles Dickens, Clara Calderon, comments, Compton, David Wynfield, Emery Walker, G.A. Storey, G.D. Leslie, G.F. Watts, George Calderon, Greville Corbett, H.S. Marks, Juan Calderón, Katy George, Kittie Calderon, Percy Lubbock, Peter Rees, Philip Hermogenes Calderon, Royal Academy, St Elizabeth of Hungary's Great Act of Renunciation, St John's Wood Clique, W.F. Yeames, Watts Gallery, Watts Gallery-Artists' Village
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The Somme: over to you
It won’t, I think, surprise followers to hear that I know next to nothing about the Battle of the Somme compared with Ypres 1 and Gallipoli, which George Calderon fought at and which we covered from day to day in … Continue reading
Posted in Edwardian character, Heroism and Adventure, Modern parallels, Personal commentary
Tagged attrition, Battle of the Somme, British Expeditionary Force, comments, Dardanelles, Gallipoli, General Douglas Haig, General Henry Rawlinson, George Calderon, Harvey Pitcher, Hugh Sebag Montefiore, Imperial War Museum, Martin Middlebrook, Peter Hart, The Great War, Third Battle of Krithia, World War I, Ypres
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Mrs Stewart of Torquay recalibrated
I refer new followers to my post of 1 June 2016. The reason it was important to find out more about the life of Mrs Eliza Stewart, even so late in the project, is that after the sudden death in … Continue reading
Posted in Edwardian character, Edwardian marriage, Modern parallels, Personal commentary
Tagged biographies, biography, Canada, comments, Eliza Stewart, Fife, George Calderon, golf, James Affleck Stewart, John Tucker, Kittie Calderon, Marge Calderon, Marguerite Calderon, Margy Calderon, Michael Welch, Mrs Stewart of Torquay, Nina Astley, Nina Corbet, Nina Stewart, St Andrews, The Croft, The Nest, Torquay
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The Somme: a memory
In July 1970, whilst waiting to hear whether I had been awarded a grant to do a Ph.D. on Chekhov, I worked for six weeks in the male wing of a ‘mental hospital’ near my home. I place the words … Continue reading
Three women follow the Somme
After Kittie Calderon had done all she could to establish George’s fate at Gallipoli on 4 June 1915, and accepted that she would live by the faith that he was in a Turkish prisoner of war camp, she suffered a … Continue reading
Posted in Edwardian character, Edwardian marriage, Heroism and Adventure, Modern parallels, Personal commentary
Tagged Battle of the Somme, biographies, Captain Charles Evelyn Pym, comments, Constance Astley, Constance Sutton, Dardanelles, Dick Sutton, Evey Pym, Foxwold, Gallipoli, General Henry Rawlinson, George Calderon, Givenchy, Jim Corbet, Kittie Calderon, Nina Astley, Nina Corbet, Sir Richard Sutton, Sir Roland James Corbet, Verdun, Violet Pym, Wimereux
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Kittie absolved, Lydia looks in
I received my copy of the second edition of George’s Two Plays by Tchekhof from a distinguished bookseller in Cumbria, and promptly set about comparing its Introduction with that of both the first edition and the Chekhov volume edited by Kittie … Continue reading →