K.N. Das Gupta and Margaret Mitchell in an Indian Dramatic Society production of The Maharani of Arakan, 1913?
George Calderon c.1901
Jean Ryckaert, May 1916.
Michel and Vera Fokine in “Scheherazade”, 1914 (The Music And Theatre Library of Sweden, creative commons)
Basic form of the Calderon coat of arms
Captain of the 11
Unpublished watercolour by George Calderon, Tahiti 1906
Frontis piece by Frank Calderon
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)
Christmas 1901 Cartoon by George Calderon
Patrick Miles in his summer house, 11 December 2016
Sir Richard Vincent Sutton c. 1913
Monarch Butterfly Madeira
George Calderon, 1912
Colonel Sir Walter Coote Hedley c. 1920
The entrance to Fort Brockhurst (picture from Britain’s Past)
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)
Tag Archives: biographies
Two anniversaries
Commemoration of the tenth anniversary of this blog was elided. On 30 July 1914 George Calderon arrived on the Isle of Wight to spend a holiday with the Pym family and I began the blog on 30 July 2014 with … Continue reading
Posted in Edwardian character, Heroism and Adventure, Modern parallels, Uncategorized
Tagged 'real time', anniversaries, biographies, biography, Brexit, British Expeditionary Force, Calderonia, candles, commemoration, comments, empathy, George Calderon, George Calderon: Edwardian Genius, Isle of Wight, Kittie Calderon, Laurence Binyon, Pym family, The Great War, Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, World War I
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A second Family Bible
Laurence Brockliss, Emeritus Professor of History at Oxford University, is no stranger to Calderonia’s followers. For ten years he and his research team worked to create a relational database that crunched biographical information from online sites, archives, newspapers and other … Continue reading
Posted in Edwardian character, Edwardian marriage, Heroism and Adventure, Modern parallels, Personal commentary
Tagged Andrew Tatham, Anthony Trollope, biographies, career mobility, Charles Dickens, Dennis Henry Wickham, digital history, Edwardianism, Edwardians, Family Bible, family histories, George Calderon, George Eliot, George Gissing, Harry Smith, Jane Austen, John Latham, Kittie Calderon, Laurence Brockliss, occupations, Oxbridge, professionals, professions, prosopographical studies, prosopography, public schools, relational databases, The Edwardian Era, The Great War, Thomas S. Boase, Victorians, women, World War I
4 Comments
A stunning discovery
Mr Garry Humphreys is writing a major book about the English composer Arthur Somervell (1863-1937), as well as compiling a catalogue raisonné of Somervell’s compositions. On 6 September last year he emailed me to ask whether I thought a typescript … Continue reading
Posted in Edwardian character, Edwardian English, Edwardian literature, Personal commentary
Tagged 'Scheherazade', Abu Nâsi, Arthur Somervell, ballet, Ballets Russes, biographies, biography, cartoons, comments, Dardanelles, Gallipoli, Garry Humphreys, George Calderon, George Calderon: Edwardian Genius, Heathland Lodge, Islam, John Pym, Kittie Calderon, Konstantin Stanislavsky, Michel Fokine, Middle East, mimodramas, Moscow Arts Theatre, The Blue Cloth, The Great War, The Red Cloth, Third Battle of Krithia, Vsevolod Meyerhold, Well Walk, World War I, Ypres
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NEW YEAR
Whether you are stalwart subscribers to Calderonia since 30 July 2014, or casual callers from across the globe to posts on, say, limericks, John Hamilton, paradoxes, the Third Battle of Krithia, dogs or Lady Chatterley’s Lover, I wish you a … Continue reading
Posted in Personal commentary
Tagged archbishops of Canterbury, BASEES Conference, biographies, biography, blog announcement, Book of Revelation, Calderonia, chrysanthemums, comments, freesias, freshness, George Calderon, George Calderon: Edwardian Genius, King Lear, Kittie Calderon, Michael Ramsay, New Year, newness, oldness, Osip Mandel'shtam, publishers, Rowan Williams, Russia, Sam&Sam, sermons, Ukraine, William Shakespeare
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The magnificent Mary Ann
Long-term followers of Calderonia will recall that I had always had a theory that the person who taught George to speak Russian credibly before he set out for St Petersburg in 1895 was a ‘Mrs Shapter’, but in my biography … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged Alexander I, Andrew Jones, Anton Chekhov, biographies, biography, Camille Silvy, Clara Calderon, Constance Garnett, Evan Hodgson, Exeter, Francke family, George Calderon, George Calderon: Edwardian Genius, Glasgow Repertory Theatre, Harry Leeke Gibbs, Harvey Pitcher, John Hodgson, John Shapter, Kittie Calderon, Laurence Binyon, Manya Guseva, Mary Ann Shapter, Mary Gibbs Shapter, Michael Pursglove, Mrs Shapter, Museum of the Home, National Portrait Gallery, Nicholas I, Olga Novikoff, oracy, P.H. Calderon, Russia, Sally Jones, silver, sketchbooks, St John's Wood Clique, St Petersburg, The Seagull, The Smiths of Moscow, theatre, Thomas Shapter, toddy ladle, Whishaw family, Yeames family
2 Comments
From the diary of a writer-publisher: 22
24 February 2023 A recent study made by a reliable Moscow source indicates that 22% of the Russians polled were fervently in favour of the war on Ukraine, 20% were deeply opposed to it, and the rest (58%) ‘had no … Continue reading
Posted in Edwardian character, Personal commentary
Tagged acting agencies, Alexander Pushkin, Alexandra Cann, autocracy, ballet, Ballets Russes, biographies, books, Boris Godunov, Call My Agent, Callimachus, comments, democracy, Dix pour cent, France, freedom, Friedrich Nietzsche, George Balanchine, George Calderon: Edwardian Genius, Granta Publishing, independent publishing, James Miles, Jennifer Homans, Lincoln Kirstein, literary agents, Michel Fokine, Moscow, Nadezhda Mandel'shtam, New York City Ballet, opinion polls, responsibility, Russia, Sam&Sam, School of American Ballet, theatre agents, theosophy, Ukraine, Vladimir Soloviev, Volodymyr Zelensky, William Rothenstein
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Christmas in Moscow, 1969
Leningrad, … Continue reading
Posted in Personal commentary
Tagged ballet, biographies, biography, Bolshoi Theatre, British Embassy, Brussels sprouts, caviar, Christmas, Christmas Day, comments, coq au vin, George Calderon, Gorki Park, hoarfrost, Leningrad, Maya Plisetskaya, Moscow, Moscow University, Odette, Patrick Miles, prima ballerina assoluta, rime, Russia, skating, Swan Lake
1 Comment
Mending into…
In my mind’s eye, I can see George Calderon opening this book and chuckling with delight — not just because it was written (and gorgeously illustrated) by a great-granddaughter of his close friend ‘Evey’ Pym, but because it exemplifies something … Continue reading
Posted in Personal commentary
Tagged anatomy, Bill Smith, biographies, Celia Pym, chaotic systems, Charles Evelyn Pym, comments, Elizabeth Pym, Evey Pym, evil eye, Fair Isle, George Calderon, Hope Pym, Jim Ivory, Judy Auerbach, jumpers, Kazimir Malevich, knitting, Lara Veitch, Lolu Oluwole-Ojo, mending, Monte Carlo Opera House, moth infestations, murmurations, Piet Mondrian, Pseuds Corner, pullovers, Roland Pym, silk, snowflakes, Suprematism, sweaters, teazles, Treasures from a Ragpile, Victoria & Albert Museum, Vivien Leigh, Women's Home Industries, Wool
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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
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‘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
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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
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‘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
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50 years of ‘small publishing’: what has it taught me?
It has turned out that since Musk took over Twitter we cannot, after all, post our own Calderonia Tweets at the bottom of the Subscribe, Categories, Comments etc column on the right of the home page — though we can, … Continue reading →