Frontis piece by Frank Calderon
A happy memory of Trinity College: undergraduates breakfast together in Downy V. Green, p. 77.
George Calderon, 1912
Captain of the 11
K.N. Das Gupta and Margaret Mitchell in an Indian Dramatic Society production of The Maharani of Arakan, 1913?
The entrance to Fort Brockhurst (picture from Britain’s Past)
Jean Ryckaert, May 1916.
George Calderon c.1901
Unpublished watercolour by George Calderon, Tahiti 1906
Book sent to George Calderon in Russia by his mother, Christmas 1895.
Michel and Vera Fokine in “Scheherazade”, 1914 (The Music And Theatre Library of Sweden, creative commons)
Sir Richard Vincent Sutton c. 1913
Christmas 1901 Cartoon by George Calderon
George and Kittie Calderon 1905
Figure from Gauguin’s 1899 painting ‘Tahitian Women with Mango Blossoms’ (left); George Calderon’s pencil sketch ‘Manu’ (right)
Colonel Sir Walter Coote Hedley c. 1920
Basic form of the Calderon coat of arms
Monarch Butterfly Madeira
Patrick Miles in his summer house, 11 December 2016Recent 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)
Tag Archives: biographies
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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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
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‘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
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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…and a brain surgeon writes
Much as I am enjoying writing this blog free of the constraints of 1914-15 Time, I think long-term followers may understand when I say that I still think of my 1914-15 ‘blography’ of George as Calderonia proper. Those followers will remember … Continue reading
A posh word for it…
The other day, I came across a word that was new to me: apophenia. It is not in Chambers Dictionary, and at first I wondered whether it was a misprint. But, of course, there is masses about it on the internet. … Continue reading
Posted in Modern parallels, Personal commentary
Tagged apophenia, biographies, biography, Claus Konrad, comments, Dardanelles, Gallipoli, George Calderon, King's Own Scottish Borderers, Kittie Calderon, Man in the Moon, paranoia, pareidolia, schizophrenia, solipsism, The Great War, Third Battle of Krithia, Wikipedia, World War I
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Progress
I’m relieved to say that I’ve completed the sixth draft of my Introduction to George Calderon: Edwardian Genius since June 2013 and cannot at the moment do more. It’s gone off to my biographer colleague for his attention. After he has put … Continue reading
Thank you; and Bunty!
Last Thursday here in Cambridge I went to see a new production of Patrick Marber’s version of Strindberg’s Miss Julie, set in Britain 1945. I would be surprised if there is a tougher, less sentimental play touring England at this moment (it … Continue reading
Posted in Edwardian character, Edwardian marriage, Modern parallels, Personal commentary
Tagged August Strindberg, biographies, biography, Bunty, Captain Charles Evelyn Pym, cats, Clare Hopkins, comments, Constance Sutton, dogs, Foxwold, George Calderon, Harry Ricketts, Jack Pym, Jenny Hands, John Pym, Kittie Calderon, Miss Julie, Nina Corbet, Patrick Marber, Robert Nichols, The Great War, war poetry, World War I
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‘A sort of mother to us all’
Others’ observations about Kittie Calderon are rare (except for George’s in letters, of course). It was with great pleasure, therefore, that I heard recently from the film critic John Pym that he had come across several mentions of Kittie in … Continue reading
Posted in Edwardian character, Edwardian marriage, Personal commentary
Tagged biographies, biography, Brasted Chart, Bunty, Captain Charles Evelyn Pym, comments, Dermot James, Diana Gough, Diana Pym, Elizabeth Pym, Foxwold, George Calderon, Jack Pym, Jeremy Pym, John Hamilton, John Pym, Kittie Calderon, Lady Dorothea Gough, Roland Pym, Violet Pym, White Raven
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Is this George Calderon?
Just as music gives people ‘ear-worms’, so biography brings us ‘phantom flies in amber’. As I explained in my posts of 5 January and 1 April 2015, over time the biographer becomes convinced s/he has seen things in print that … Continue reading
Posted in Edwardian character, Heroism and Adventure, Personal commentary
Tagged beetles, biographies, biography, comments, Dardanelles, ear-worms, flies in amber, Gallipoli, George Calderon, King's Own Scottish Borderers, Kittie Calderon, military interpreters, photographs, The Blues, The Great War, Third Battle of Krithia, World War I
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A terrible anniversary
George Calderon is presumed to have died just after noon at the Third Battle of Krithia on 4 June 1915. Obviously, I refer first-time blog-visitors to my posts for that and subsequent days last year, the actual centenary of the … Continue reading
Posted in Edwardian character, Edwardian English, Edwardian marriage, Heroism and Adventure, Personal commentary
Tagged 'real time', Anton Chekhov, biographies, biography, Brigadier-General Napier, Clare Hopkins, comments, Dardanelles, Gallipoli, George Calderon, Helles, King's Own Scottish Borderers, Kittie Calderon, Major G.B. Stoney, River Clyde, Stanley Spencer, Søren Kierkegaard, The Cherry Orchard, The Great War, Third Battle of Krithia, William Rothenstein, World War I
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Watch this Space
Calderonia is an experiment in biography through a blog. It tells the story of George and Kittie Calderon’s lives from 30 July 1914 to 30 July 1915 from day to day as it happened, but exactly 100 years afterwards. It therefore … Continue reading
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 →