A TLS review!!!

I was rendered soundless and motionless last Thursday when a stalwart subscriber emailed to tell me that a full-length review of George Calderon: Edwardian Genius had appeared that morning in The Times Literary Supplement. A Zen moment indeed.

For consider: the original review copy had been sent out on 14 June 2018, nearly three months before publication date, then two more at six month intervals, and eventually I gave up. Well, let’s not analyse, wonder and grumble, let’s rejoice and be thankful, for a review in the TLS is worth a silver spoon. I will say a bit about it after this:

The above is the beginning of the TLS review as featured on their site. Click here to read a full scan of the review.

Charlotte Jones has written a sensitive and beautifully connective essai. I am particularly gratified that she has focussed on how I tell the story, on George as ‘a lynchpin for Anglo-Russian cultural relations’, and on the role of this dear old blog Calderonia.

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.