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.
Captain of the 11
K.N. Das Gupta and Margaret Mitchell in an Indian Dramatic Society production of The Maharani of Arakan, 1913?
Frontis piece by Frank Calderon
The entrance to Fort Brockhurst (picture from Britain’s Past)
Basic form of the Calderon coat of arms
Colonel Sir Walter Coote Hedley c. 1920
Unpublished watercolour by George Calderon, Tahiti 1906
George Calderon c.1901
Book sent to George Calderon in Russia by his mother, Christmas 1895.
Sir Richard Vincent Sutton c. 1913
Michel and Vera Fokine in “Scheherazade”, 1914 (The Music And Theatre Library of Sweden, creative commons)
Jean Ryckaert, May 1916.
George and Kittie Calderon 1905
Patrick Miles in his summer house, 11 December 2016
Monarch Butterfly Madeira
George Calderon, 1912
Christmas 1901 Cartoon by George CalderonRecent 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: Moscow
‘Immaturity’ and ‘youth’ in poetry
I was amused (for reasons about to emerge) that the first hit I had for my last post, ‘Quetzalcoatl’, came from Mexico…but I was astonished that no-one wrote in to ask why on earth the poem was called ‘Quetzalcoatl’ and … Continue reading
Posted in Heroism and Adventure, Modern parallels, Personal commentary
Tagged Alexander Pushkin, Aztecs, Communism, D.H. Lawrence, G.-J. Geitman, genocide, human sacrifice, immaturity, Imperial Lyceum, Joseph Stalin, Lyceum Poems, Mexico, Moscow, poetry, quetzal, Quetzalcoatl, rain, rainbows, Russia, Spanish Conquest, The Plumed Serpent, USSR, Wassily Kandinsky, youth
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Poem after a summer rain shower in Moscow, 1970
© Patrick Miles, 1970 Background: fragment of Kandinsky’s ‘Painting with Green Centre’, 1913 ADVERTISEMENT 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 … Continue reading
Very Old Cambridge Tales 5: ‘Stone’s Story’
‘Will you be going to Russia again?’ I asked Stone as we arrived back at his rooms from the college dinner he had stood me. ‘Not if I can help it!’ he retorted, unlocking the door and walking straight across … Continue reading
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
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A writer-publisher’s Ukrainian diary: 5
7 May 2022 People are, I know, frightened by Putin’s threats to use nuclear weapons. I have suggested that even western leaders have been sufficiently frightened by these threats to be militarily unproactive. This means that Putin doesn’t need to … Continue reading
Posted in Personal commentary
Tagged Anatolii Chubais, anecdotes, Boris Yel'tsin, comedy, comments, Commonwealth of Independent States, Czechoslovakia, Empire style, Finland, Hungary, irony, Jill Biden, Leonid Brezhnev, Mikhail Gorbachev, Moscow, Nancy Pelosi, nuclear weapons, Pavel Palazhchenko, Pierre Trudeau, Poland, rakes, Russo-Ukrainian War, Stalin, The Crimea, Ukraine, Victory Day, Vladimir Putin, Vladislav Zubok, Volodymyr Zelensky, World War 2
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From the diary of a writer-publisher: 12
26 September Today I suddenly realised what life under Black Crow reminds me of: living in the Soviet Union. It would be unfair to compare Britain at the moment to the view from a window in Moscow University’s Stalinist hostel … Continue reading
Posted in Personal commentary
Tagged advertisements, Andrew Tatham, Bashō, chrysanthemums, comments, coronavirus, COVID-19, dahlias, depression, freedom, garden gnomes, indie publishing, John Dewey, mental health, Moscow, Moscow State University, pandemic, psychosis, Reaktion Books, Rose Tremaine, Sam&Sam, Sam2, self-publishing, Times Literary Supplement, Twigs Way, USSR
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Bloggering on!
It is such a long time since I blogged, that followers would be excused for forgetting why the previous post has been up for five weeks. The reason is that we have been preparing for Sam&Sam’s Moscow-Cambridge stall at the … Continue reading
Posted in Personal commentary
Tagged BASEES Conference, biographies, comments, coronavirus, COVID-19, George Calderon, George Calderon: Edwardian Genius, Harvey Pitcher, John Polkinghorne, marketing, Moscow, pandemics, publishing, Robinson College, Russianists, sales, Sam&Sam, Slavists, What Can We Hope For?
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A ‘funny’ moment
Idly doing my housework, as one does, I suddenly realised that my nylon ‘feather’ duster had whisked over Kittie’s surviving suitcase without my even noticing it. I paused and by reflex put my hand on the case. Why I did … Continue reading
Posted in Edwardian character, Edwardian marriage, Heroism and Adventure, Modern parallels, Personal commentary
Tagged aftermath, biographies, biography, comments, depression, economics, George Calderon, housework, Khodynka, Kittie Calderon, Martin Shaw, Moscow, political economy, publishers, publishing, suitcase, Susie Boyt, Taoism
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Russia (continued)
Chapter four of my biography, ‘Who Had He Been?’, relates amongst other things what George did in Russia between 12 October 1895 and the summer of 1897. I think it will be a revelation to a lot of people. It … Continue reading
Posted in Edwardian character, Heroism and Adventure, Modern parallels, Personal commentary, Uncategorized
Tagged Alexander III, Anton Chekhov, ARLS, Armistice Festival, biographies, biography, Clara Calderon, comments, Friedrich Nietzsche, G.W.F. Hegel, George Calderon, George Orwell, Joseph Stalin, Khodynka Field, Kittie Calderon, Konstantin Pobedonostsev, Lev Tolstoi, Monthly Review, Moscow, Nicholas II, Olga Novikoff, Pall Mall Gazette, Percy Lubbock, Petr Kropotkin, Sergei Stepniak-Kravchinskii, St Petersburg, Standard, The Great War, Vladimir Putin, W.T. Stead, World War I, Ypres
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Tahiti: an imagined world?
It must have taken great self-control for George to concentrate on making a full synopsis of his book Tahiti when he was home on weekend leave, rather than simply keep writing it. But it was certainly the most rational approach. … Continue reading
‘Lady with a Little Dog’ (Concluded)
IV And Anna Sergeyevna began coming to see him in Moscow. Every two or three months she would leave S., telling her husband she was going to consult a professor about her female complaint – and her husband believed her … Continue reading →