George Calderon, 1912
Patrick Miles in his summer house, 11 December 2016
Jean Ryckaert, May 1916.
The entrance to Fort Brockhurst (picture from Britain’s Past)
Colonel Sir Walter Coote Hedley c. 1920
Figure from Gauguin’s 1899 painting ‘Tahitian Women with Mango Blossoms’ (left); George Calderon’s pencil sketch ‘Manu’ (right)
A happy memory of Trinity College: undergraduates breakfast together in Downy V. Green, p. 77.
Frontis piece by Frank Calderon
Christmas 1901 Cartoon by George Calderon
Sir Richard Vincent Sutton c. 1913
Unpublished watercolour by George Calderon, Tahiti 1906
Michel and Vera Fokine in “Scheherazade”, 1914 (The Music And Theatre Library of Sweden, creative commons)
Book sent to George Calderon in Russia by his mother, Christmas 1895.
K.N. Das Gupta and Margaret Mitchell in an Indian Dramatic Society production of The Maharani of Arakan, 1913?
Captain of the 11
Basic form of the Calderon coat of arms
George and Kittie Calderon 1905
George Calderon c.1901
Monarch Butterfly Madeira
Recent Comments
- Patrick Miles on Guest Post by John Pym: A Soviet film of ‘The Lady with the Little Dog’ Many, many thanks for reprising, Johnnie, for I know how busy you are. How serendipitous that you had just seen a 'live' performance of Murnau's b&w Sunrise! I gather from... (March 14, 2025 at 10:21 am)
- John Pym on Guest Post by John Pym: A Soviet film of ‘The Lady with the Little Dog’ March 8, 2025: Last evening, I watched a digital transfer of a black-and-white movie, made by an expatriate German in California nearly a hundred years ago, in a packed town... (March 10, 2025 at 4:36 pm)
- Patrick Miles on Guest Post by John Pym: A Soviet film of ‘The Lady with the Little Dog’ Your response here is (obviously) deeply informed... Thank you very much indeed. In comparing the coach ride to Simferopol in Heifitz's film with the chariot race in Ben-Hur... (March 5, 2025 at 10:01 am)
- John Pym on Guest Post by John Pym: A Soviet film of ‘The Lady with the Little Dog’ Black-and-white camerawork was, I suspect, as natural to the director of The Lady with the Little Dog as breathing in and out or eating his breakfast. I doubt that he was... (February 28, 2025 at 11:01 pm)
- Patrick Miles on Guest Post by John Pym: A Soviet film of ‘The Lady with the Little Dog’ We are deeply favoured and honoured to publish on Calderonia the eminent film critic John Pym's magnificent tribute to Heifitz's film The Lady with the Little Dog, perfectly... (February 24, 2025 at 10:56 am)
Tag Archives: Anton Chekhov
Mayakovsky’s pancake
It may seem surprising that I can bring myself to say anything positive about Russians at a time when their country has become, to quote Joseph Conrad again, ‘the negation of everything worth living for’. But, of course, these four … Continue reading
Posted in Personal commentary
Tagged Aleksei Suvorin, Alfred Dreyfus, anecdotes, Anton Chekhov, Anton Chekhov: A Short Life, biographies, comments, Dreyfus Affair, Lev Trotsky, literary anecdotes, Literature and Revolution, love, love at first sight, Mikhail Pavlovich Chekhov, Narkom, pancakes, parallel lines, People's Commissar, proverbs, Shrove Tuesday, Shrovetide, steppe, Vladimir Mayakovsky
Leave a comment
‘Chekhov’s Gun’ (Concluded)
In this concluding video on the subject of Chekhov’s Gun, I give a thumbnail sketch of its application in his own plays from Ivanov (1887) to The Cherry Orchard (1904). Since the phrase is so popular (yes, really, I have … Continue reading
Posted in Modern parallels, Personal commentary
Tagged Anton Chekhov, bee-brooch, biographies, biography, breaking string, chaos theory, Chekhov's Gun, Chekhovian, comments, commercial theatre, contingency, cucumber, fortuitousness, galoshes, Ivanov, MacGuffin, The Cherry Orchard, The Seagull, The Wood Demon, Three Sisters, Uncle Vanya
1 Comment
The Isle of Wight Entente of 1909
If there is one book that I wish I had been able to read when I was researching my biography of George Calderon, it is the one above, published last year. A quarter of it (pp. 231-336) deals with the … Continue reading
Posted in Edwardian character, Modern parallels, Personal commentary
Tagged Alfred Wareing, Alix of Hesse, Anglo-British relations, Anton Chekhov, Arthur Hendesron, biographies, Britain and the Isle of Wight, Cheka, comments, Deptford, Edward VII, Ekaterinburg, George Calderon, George Calderon: Edwardian Genius, Glasgow Repertory Theatre, H.H. Asquith, holiday reading, Isle and Empires: Romanov Russia, Isle of Wight, Nicholas II, Osborne House, Peter the Great, Prince Albert, Queen Victoria, Romania, Russo-British relations, Sir Edward Grey, Spithead, Stephan Roman, stratsoterptsy, The Great War, The Seagull, Triple Entente, William Gerhardie, World War I
Leave a comment
‘Chekhov’s Gun’ (To be continued)
Sam2 has persuaded me to make four short videos about my recently published short biography of Chekhov and my ra-ther longer 2018 biography of George Calderon. I am completely new to the genre, therefore you should not expect a slick … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged Anton Chekhov, Anton Chekhov: A Short Life, biographies, biography, Chekhov's Gun, comments, dramatic principles, George Calderon, George Calderon: Edwardian Genius, Ivanov, Moscow Art Theatre, Moscow Arts, Sam2, The Seagull, videos, Vladimir Ivanovich Nemirovich-Danchenko, Wikipedia
Leave a comment
A writer-publisher’s Ukrainian diary: 3
11 April 2022 Whilst coming back from the shop with today’s newspaper, I could see a neighbour on the other side of the street who was born at the gates of Mauthausen concentration camp six days before it was liberated … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged 'The Steppe', Anton Chekhov, appeasement, Bellingcat, Bletchley, Cambridge, Crimea, Czechoslovakia, Dnipro, Donbas, Donetsk, FSB, KGB, Mauthausen, Max Hastings, morale, NATO, Nazi Germany, Polonia, Russia, Sergei Beseda, Simferopol, steppeland, tank battles, The Times, Ukraine, Vladimir Putin, Volodymyr Zelensky, Yalta, Yasinovataya, Zhdanov
4 Comments
A writer-publisher’s Ukrainian diary: 2
5 April 2022 When I contemplated the image from Kyiv that I posted last week, as well as Bruegel I thought of Isaac Babel’s stories Red Cavalry about the Russo-Polish War of 1919-21. Some of that war took place in … Continue reading
Posted in Personal commentary
Tagged 'The Prince', Aleksandr Lukashenko, Andrew Tatham, Anton Chekhov, atrocities, Babi Yar, Babyn Yar Holocaust Memorial Centre, Belarus, Belorussia, Bucha, Chris Deverell, comments, Crimea, David McDuff, Donald Trump, Donbas, EU, Fiona Hill, Georg Trakl, Isaac Babel, Joe Biden, Kyiv, L'viv, Mariupol, Military Intelligence, NATO, Nazis, Niccolo Machiavelli, Pieter Bruegel the Elder, Red Cavalry, The Times, Ukraine, Vladimir Putin, weapons, World War I, Zbrucz
Leave a comment
A year of promise
A very happy new year to all Calderonia’s subscribers and viewers! Thank you for staying with us through 2021, which was our eighth calendar year, and I can promise you at least another year of posts from me and my … Continue reading
Posted in Personal commentary
Tagged Anton Chekhov, Anton Chekhov: A Short Life, BASEES, biographies, British Association for Slavonic and East European Studies, Calderonia, comments, COVID-19, George Calderon, George Calderon: Edwardian Genius, Gleb Yakunin, Jim Miles, pandemics, promises, Robinson College, Sam&Sam, Sergei Bychkov, Spanish Flu, The Great War, World War I
2 Comments
‘Lady Chatterley’s Lover’: Fragments of a response
When I read the novel for the first time, I was bemused by the in-your-face tone of the narrator, who is even given to exclamatory comments: ‘But that is how men are!’ — ‘But Emma said No!’ — ‘Yes, she … Continue reading
Posted in Personal commentary
Tagged Anton Chekhov, Clifford Chatterley, comments, Constance Chatterley, D.H. Lawrence, Damian Grant, display, Doris Lessing, God, kittiwakes, Lady Chatterley, Lady Chatterley's Lover, letters, marriage, narrators, Oliver Mellors, orgasm, PTSD, sex, Sons of God, The Great War, The Rainbow, William Gerhardie, Women in Love, World War 2, World War I
1 Comment
Lady with little dog/Gamekeeper with spaniel
Our guest posts on Women in Love opened an admirable exchange of Comments about all sorts of aspects of Lawrence’s work. I think there was a feeling, however, that we were left with an elephant in the room: Lady … Continue reading
Posted in Modern parallels, Personal commentary
Tagged A Propos of 'Lady Chatterley's Lover', Anna Sergeevna, Anton Chekhov, Clifford Chatterley, comments, compassion, Connie, Constance Chatterley, D.H. Lawrence, Damian Grant, Dmitrii Gurov, dogs, ends, Flossie, Lady Chatterley, Lady Chatterley Trial, Lady Chatterley's Lover, love, Mark Schorer, narrative endings, new marriage, Oliver Mellors, Paul Cézanne, Penguin Books, Pomeranian dogs, roman adultère, sex, tenderness, The Lady with the Little Dog, The Winter's Tale, William Shakespeare
Leave a comment
From the diary of a writer-publisher: 15
2 June I have never known the cow parsley so high in front of my shed… 11 June We have completed our ‘hardcopy marketing’ for Edna’s Diary. 130 free copies have gone out to stroke clubs, NHS speech and language therapy … Continue reading
Posted in Personal commentary
Tagged ADC Theatre, Anton Chekhov, aphasia, As You Like It, biographies, comments, copyright, cow parsley, Cymbeline, Edna's Diary, Hesperus Press, Lady Chatterley's Lover, marketing, Melanie Derbyshire, musicals, NHS, Sasha Regan, Shaftesbury Theatre, sheds, social media, Stroke Association UK, Sylvia Krystel
Leave a comment
Some Calderonian footnotes to ‘Women in Love’
George Calderon was public-school, Oxford, backed by his wife’s unearned income, rather patriotic, perceived as conservative; D.H. Lawrence was a miner’s son, self-supporting and often penurious, rather oikophobic, perceived as revolutionary. What could they possibly have had in common? They … Continue reading
Posted in Edwardian character, Edwardian English, Edwardian literature, Heroism and Adventure, Modern parallels, Personal commentary
Tagged Anton Chekhov, Battle of the Somme, Breadalby, Catherine Brown, Centre Party, comments, Constance Garnett, D.H. Lawrence, Dwala, elopement, English Review, Ernest Weekley, Fanny Stepniak, Far End, Fathers and Sons, Ford Hueffer, Ford Madox Ford, Frieda Lawrence, Frieda Weekley, Garsington, George Calderon, George Calderon: Edwardian Genius, Hampstead, Ivan Turgenev, John Worthen, Kittie Calderon, polymathery, revolution, The Edwardians, The Great War, Thomas Sturge Moore, translation, Trinity College Oxford, Well Walk, William Rothenstein, Women in Love, World War I
9 Comments
George Calderon’s New Drama
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 →