Book sent to George Calderon in Russia by his mother, Christmas 1895.
A happy memory of Trinity College: undergraduates breakfast together in Downy V. Green, p. 77.
Sir Richard Vincent Sutton c. 1913
Christmas 1901 Cartoon by George Calderon
George Calderon, 1912
Michel and Vera Fokine in “Scheherazade”, 1914 (The Music And Theatre Library of Sweden, creative commons)
Colonel Sir Walter Coote Hedley c. 1920
Basic form of the Calderon coat of arms
Monarch Butterfly Madeira
The entrance to Fort Brockhurst (picture from Britain’s Past)
Frontis piece by Frank Calderon
Jean Ryckaert, May 1916.
Figure from Gauguin’s 1899 painting ‘Tahitian Women with Mango Blossoms’ (left); George Calderon’s pencil sketch ‘Manu’ (right)
George and Kittie Calderon 1905
Unpublished watercolour by George Calderon, Tahiti 1906
K.N. Das Gupta and Margaret Mitchell in an Indian Dramatic Society production of The Maharani of Arakan, 1913?
Captain of the 11
George Calderon c.1901
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: Constance Garnett
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
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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
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: … Continue reading
Posted in Edwardian character, Edwardian English, Edwardian literature, Edwardian marriage, Personal commentary
Tagged Anglo-Russian cultural relations, Anton Chekhov, Ballets Russes, biographies, biography, Calderonia, Charlotte Jones, comments, Constance Garnett, George Calderon, George Calderon: Edwardian Genius, Kittie Calderon, Laurence Binyon, Laurence Sterne, life-writing, modernism, Nina Corbet, Professor Rose of Leipzig, reviews, Russomania, Tahiti, The Seagull, Times Literary Supplement, TLS, Tristram Shandy, William John Rose
2 Comments
Rochelle Townsend’s ‘Uncle Vanya’
In my introduction to these four posts about the ‘mystery’ Misses and Misters who feature in my biography of George Calderon and the world of Edwardian Anglo-Russian cultural relations, I said that after Michael Pursglove’s magnificent post about the ‘mysterious’ … Continue reading
Posted in Edwardian character, Edwardian English, Edwardian literature, Modern parallels, Personal commentary
Tagged Aldwych Theatre, Anton Chekhov, authorship, Chekhov on the British Stage, collaborators, comments, Constance Garnett, English premieres, George Calderon, Herbert Grimwood, Incorporated Stage Society, L.P. Hartley, Michael Pursglove, Rochelle Townsend, stage managers, translation, Uncle Vanya, Victoria & Albert Museum
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Inestimable Russianist 1: Michael Pursglove
(This series is timed to coincide with the 2019 Annual Conference of the British Association for Slavonic and East European Studies held 12-14 April at Robinson College, Cambridge, where Sam&Sam will be promoting George Calderon: Edwardian Genius.) When Michael Pursglove … Continue reading
Posted in Edwardian English, Edwardian literature, Modern parallels, Personal commentary
Tagged A.B. Murphy, Alexander Pushkin, Alma Books, Andrei Voznesenskii, Andrew Assumption, Anna Karenina, Aylmer Maude, BASEES, comments, Constance Garnett, deaf community, Dmitrii Grigorovich, Fedor Dostoevskii, Fedor Tyutchev, George Calderon, Great Britain-Russia Society, Ivan Turgenev, Larissa Miller, Lev Tolstoy, Louise Maude, Michael Pursglove, Mikhail Lermontov, Moscow and Muscovites, Mrs Shapter, Petr Viazemskii, Professor Rose, publishers, Reading University, Robert Conquest, Robinson College, Russianists, translators, Vladimir Giliarovskii
2 Comments
Inestimable Russianists: A Coming Series of Posts
Frankly, one of the worst experiences from publishing my biography of George Calderon has been the appalling response to the 71 complimentary and review copies that I sent out. I was encouraged, for instance, by specific journalists at The Times, TLS, … Continue reading
Posted in Edwardian literature, Personal commentary
Tagged ABEbooks, Aylmer Maude, biographies, comments, complimentary copies, Constance Garnett, George Calderon, George Calderon: Edwardian Genius, Harvey Pitcher, John Dewey, journalists, Michael Pursglove, reviewers, rudeness, Russianists, Sam&Sam, translators
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The Editor-in-Chief
It is a truth universally forgotten until too late, that as soon as we call a kettle black we start turning into a pot. I know too much about Constance Garnett, her husband Edward and his father Richard. There … Continue reading
Posted in Edwardian character, Edwardian English, Edwardian literature, Edwardian marriage, Modern parallels, Personal commentary
Tagged Anton Chekhov, Charles Dickens, Constance Garnett, cricket, D.H. Lawrence, Duckworth, editors, Edward Garnett, Edward Thomas, H.E. Bates, Helen Smith, John Galsworthy, Jonathan Cape, Joseph Conrad, kettles, pots, publishers readers, Richard Garnett, T. Fisher Unwin, T.E. Lawrence, William Heinemann
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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
Posted in Personal commentary
Tagged 'real time', Anton Chekhov, biographies, biography, Calderonia, comments, Constance Garnett, Dardanelles, deadlines, Gallipoli, George Calderon, Jenny Hands, political parties, Taoism, The Great War, The Stage Society, trade unionism, World War I, Ypres
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The Edwardian turn of language
If George’s translations are ‘quirky’ and Constance’s ‘bland’, what is it they have in common that qualifies them both as ‘Edwardian’? A certain kind of logorrhoea combined with loose sentence structure and genteelism. Garnett, it has to be said, is … Continue reading
Posted in Edwardian English, Edwardian literature, Modern parallels, Personal commentary
Tagged Anton Chekhov, comments, Constance Garnett, George Calderon, Harold Pinter, Kittie Calderon, Michael Frayn, Michel St-Denis, Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama, The Cherry Orchard, The Seagull, Theodore Komisarjevsky
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Two anniversaries
Today is Anton Chekhov’s birthday. It is also the anniversary of the publication of George Calderon’s translations of The Seagull and The Cherry Orchard on 29 January 1912. Was this a coincidence? Probably not. The publisher, Grant Richards, was making a risky investment … Continue reading
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 →