Monarch Butterfly Madeira
Unpublished watercolour by George Calderon, Tahiti 1906
George Calderon, 1912
George Calderon c.1901
Book sent to George Calderon in Russia by his mother, Christmas 1895.
Colonel Sir Walter Coote Hedley c. 1920
A happy memory of Trinity College: undergraduates breakfast together in Downy V. Green, p. 77.
Captain of the 11
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
Frontis piece by Frank Calderon
Sir Richard Vincent Sutton c. 1913
Basic form of the Calderon coat of arms
Michel and Vera Fokine in “Scheherazade”, 1914 (The Music And Theatre Library of Sweden, creative commons)
George and Kittie Calderon 1905
The entrance to Fort Brockhurst (picture from Britain’s Past)
Figure from Gauguin’s 1899 painting ‘Tahitian Women with Mango Blossoms’ (left); George Calderon’s pencil sketch ‘Manu’ (right)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
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2/11/15. I have a hunch that the word ‘unconscionable’ features regularly in biographers’ conversations with themselves… It has taken me an ‘unconscionable’ four and a half years to reach the endgame of writing George Calderon’s biography, when I thought it would take … Continue reading
Posted in Personal commentary
Tagged biographies, biography, comments, Dardanelles, Edwardian theatre, Gallipoli, George Calderon, Horace, New Zealand, suffragism, Tahiti, The Great War, Virgil, World War I
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26/10/15. It was remiss of me, in my last Comment, not to address the first paragraph of Clare Hopkins’s last Comment, which concerned commemoration. Clare began the paragraph by asking ‘Can there ever be a last word on the subject … Continue reading
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12/10/15. There were dozens of books published by English and American visitors to Tahiti between about 1890 and 1930, and Rupert Brooke’s poems about the island became extremely well known. I have to admit that this literature is so large that I … Continue reading
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25/9/15. A natural consequence of turning the blog into a Website is that no-one (it seems!) wants to leave a Comment, because visitors who followed it every day last year no longer have a reason for looking in, and casual viewers now … Continue reading
Posted in Personal commentary
Tagged Arts and Crafts, Clare Hopkins, comments, George Calderon, Kittie Calderon, Percy Lubbock
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25/8/15. If you haven’t seen the latest cracker of a Comment from Clare Hopkins, I recommend that you do (top right)…and contribute to the discussion! A special part of my in-depth research of Kittie’s life 1915-22, for the next chapter, has … Continue reading
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16/8/15. If you haven’t seen the latest cracker of a Comment from Clare Hopkins, I recommend that you do (top right)…and contribute to the discussion! I have been away for a week. This necessitated carting the manuscript with me and a … Continue reading
Posted in Personal commentary
Tagged biographies, biography, Clare Hopkins, comments, George Calderon, Kittie Calderon, Percy Lubbock, publishers, Tahiti
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6/8/15. I was flabbergasted last week when the TLS featured ‘Calderonia’ a second time on its very popular blog, this time to mark our closing (see link on right under ‘Related’ to ‘Second TLS blog post’). I cannot thank Michael Caines … Continue reading
Posted in Personal commentary
Tagged appling, Constantinople, Dardanelles, Gallipoli, George Calderon, Helen Peel, Hoffman Philip, Kittie Calderon, Michael Caines, Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry, Robert Peel, The Great War, Third Battle of Krithia, TLS, TLS blog, War Office, World War I
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31/7/15. Blogged out, I am chilling out — slightly. I’m particularly interested in the reception of Patrick Marber’s stunning play THREE DAYS IN THE COUNTRY at the National Theatre, as it is based on my literal translation of Turgenev’s A MONTH IN … Continue reading
30 July 1915: ‘Ends’
It does not seem exactly a year since the small boys Jack and Roly Pym ran across from their holiday home at Seaview on the Isle of Wight to greet George Calderon, a kind of uncle to them, who had … Continue reading
Posted in Edwardian marriage, Personal commentary
Tagged 'real time', Anton Chekhov, Ashford, biographies, biography, Captain Charles Evelyn Pym, Carl Jung, Clare Hopkins, comments, Dardanelles, Derwent May, Elizabeth Ellis, Gallipoli, George Calderon, Harvey Pitcher, Isle of Wight, Jack Pym, James Muckle, John Dewey, John Pym, Johnnie Pym, King's Own Scottish Borderers, Kittie Calderon, Louisa Scherchen, Michael Welch, Nina Astley, Nina Corbet, Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry, Percy Lubbock, Peter Hart, Roly Pym, Sam Evans, Seaview, Sheet, Tahiti, The Great War, Third Battle of Krithia, Violet Pym, White Raven, World War I, Ypres
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29 July 1915
29th July, 1915. The Military Secretary presents his compliments to Mrs Calderon, and begs to thank her for her letter of July 26th, and to inform her that a form of enquiry on behalf of her husband will be sent … Continue reading
Posted in Edwardian marriage, Personal commentary
Tagged American Embassy, comments, Constantinople, Coote Hedley, Dardanelles, Foreign Office, Gallipoli, George Calderon, Gertrude Bell, Hoffman Philip, King's Own Scottish Borderers, Kittie Calderon, Military Secretary, Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry, Percy Lubbock, The Great War, Third Battle of Krithia, War Office, World War I
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The War
Im Westen nichts Neues is the title of Erich Maria Remarque’s famous novel, usually rendered in English as All Quiet on the Western Front. Its literal translation, however, is In the West Nothing New. The deadly sniping, sapping, night raids, shelling … Continue reading
Posted in Edwardian character, Heroism and Adventure, Personal commentary
Tagged All Quiet on the Western Front, ANZAC, Battle of Loos, British Expeditionary Force, comments, conscription, Dardanelles, Edwardianism, Erich Maria Remarque, Erich von Falkenhayn, Gallipoli, General Douglas Haig, George Calderon, Ian Hamilton, Imperial War Museum, Jack Harley, King's Own Scottish Borderers, KOSB, Mediterranean Expeditionary Force, Peter Hart, Sir John French, submarines, Suvla, The Carpathians, The Great War, Third Battle of Krithia, V.I. Lenin, Vilna, Warsaw, World War I, Ypres, Zeppelins
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26 July 1915
Today, Monday 26 July 1915, Kittie wrote the above letter to Military Secretary 3 (Casualties) at the War Office. I have not transcribed it, as she has written it as clearly as possible. Even so, she has omitted an apostrophe … Continue reading
Posted in Edwardian marriage, Personal commentary
Tagged comments, Dardanelles, Gallipoli, George Calderon, King's Own Scottish Borderers, Kittie Calderon, Percy Lubbock, prisoners, Sergeant Smith, Sergeant-Major Allan, The Great War, Third Battle of Krithia, Turkey, War Office, World War I
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9/11/15. It is a huge relief to have ‘finished writing’ the penultimate chapter, ‘Aftermath and Masterpiece’, of my biography. Although it is only 9000 words long, it has taken me ten weeks to research and write (in pencil). It has been by … Continue reading →