Basic form of the Calderon coat of arms
Captain of the 11
Unpublished watercolour by George Calderon, Tahiti 1906
Michel and Vera Fokine in “Scheherazade”, 1914 (The Music And Theatre Library of Sweden, creative commons)
The entrance to Fort Brockhurst (picture from Britain’s Past)
Frontis piece by Frank Calderon
Christmas 1901 Cartoon by George Calderon
K.N. Das Gupta and Margaret Mitchell in an Indian Dramatic Society production of The Maharani of Arakan, 1913?
Monarch Butterfly Madeira
George Calderon c.1901
George Calderon, 1912
Figure from Gauguin’s 1899 painting ‘Tahitian Women with Mango Blossoms’ (left); George Calderon’s pencil sketch ‘Manu’ (right)
Book sent to George Calderon in Russia by his mother, Christmas 1895.
Patrick Miles in his summer house, 11 December 2016
Sir Richard Vincent Sutton c. 1913
A happy memory of Trinity College: undergraduates breakfast together in Downy V. Green, p. 77.
Jean Ryckaert, May 1916.
George and Kittie Calderon 1905
Colonel Sir Walter Coote Hedley c. 1920Recent 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: The Seagull
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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‘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
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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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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
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Biography’s unheard dimension
Biography is words. Personally, I hear words when I am writing rather than being focussed on their soundless written form — which is probably why I am less than 100% consistent in my presentation of the hieroglyphs on paper. I … Continue reading
Posted in Edwardian character, Edwardian English, Edwardian literature, Modern parallels, Personal commentary
Tagged Airs Russes, Albert Cazabon, Aleksandr Glazunov, Alfred Wareing, Anatolii Liadov, Andante cantabile, Anton Chekhov, Ballets Russes, Basil de Sélincourt, biographies, biography, Chanson Trise, comments, Daniel Auber, Dardanelles, Eastcote, Edvard Grieg, eidetics, Gaetano Donizetti, George Calderon, Glasgow Repertory Theatre, Heathland Lodge, Henryk Wieniawski, Jean Sibelius, Kittie Calderon, Konstantin Stanislavsky, L'elisir d'amore, Le Philtre, Les Vendredis, Lev Tolstoi, Madeira, moods, Moscow Art Theatre, Nikolai Sokolov, Peter Tchaikovsky, smell, sound, The Seagull, Trinity College Oxford, Valse Triste, Well Walk
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Another wildcard!
After fifty years practice, I have no difficulty transliterating Russian into the Roman alphabet using three different Anglo-American systems; it’s so automatic I can practically switch my brain off as I do it… But I cannot hold the hundred or so … Continue reading
Posted in Edwardian English, Edwardian literature, Modern parallels, Personal commentary
Tagged Aldwych Theatre, Anton Chekhov, bibliography, biography, comments, Frederick Lloyd, George Calderon, Hubert Harben, J.P. Wearing, Kittie Calderon, Mary Jerrold, Modern Humanities Research Association, Novello Theatre, Philip Harben, Strand Theatre, The Cherry Orchard, The Fountain, The London Stage, The Seagull, Theatre Royal Glasgow
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Guest post: Harvey Pitcher, ‘Calderon on Chekhov’
Some years have passed since I last took down my copy of Two Plays of Tchekhof: Translated, with an Introduction and Notes by George Calderon (1912). I remembered the book with affection, especially the introduction, but going back to old … Continue reading
Posted in Edwardian character, Edwardian English, Edwardian literature, Modern parallels, Personal commentary
Tagged Anton Chekhov, appreciation, comments, communication, George Calderon, golf, Harvey Pitcher, literary criticism, meditation, soliloquy, The Cherry Orchard, The Seagull, Three Sisters, Tom Stoppard, translation, Two Plays of Tchekhof, Uncle Vanya
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Zamyatin: Ross: Calderon
Everyone should read Zamyatin’s anti-Utopian novel We, which had such an impact on George Orwell and is so different from his own 1984. But I don’t believe newcomers to Zamyatin should start with the masterpiece… The best way into the delightful, … Continue reading
Posted in Edwardian character, Edwardian marriage, Modern parallels, Personal commentary
Tagged A Fisher of Men, Archibald Campbell Ross, Armstrong Whitworth, George Campbell Ross, George Orwell, Glasgow, Heathland Lodge, Heddon-on-the Wall, Hilliard Booth, J.A.E. Curtis, Jesmond, John Dewey, Lewis Carroll, Manya Ross, Mariia Iakovlevna Guseva, Mary Hamilton, May Hamilton, Nancy Knox, Nancy Lang, Newcastle upon Tyne, Pall Mall Gazette, R.& W. Hawthorn, The Islanders, The Red Lamp, The Seagull, We, White Raven, Yevgeniy Zamyatin
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More Chekhovian than Anton
For an extreme example of what George Calderon called Chekhov’s ‘disjunctive manner’, I recommend: George touched on aspects of the ‘disjunctive manner’ in the Introduction (1912) to his translations of The Seagull and The Cherry Orchard, but he had expressed it most … Continue reading
Posted in Heroism and Adventure, Modern parallels, Personal commentary
Tagged Anton Chekhov, Christ in the Garden, comments, Florence Foster Jenkins, George Calderon, Grafton Street Gallery, Hugh Grant, Meryl Streep, Paul Gauguin, Post-Impressionists, Simon Helberg, Tahiti, The Cherry Orchard, The Seagull, Three Sisters, Uncle Vanya, Virginia Woolf
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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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Mews, hues, and wonkers
So (see ‘Two anniversaries’, 29 January), save perhaps for a few lost manuscript versions of Chekhov’s one-act plays made throughout the British Empire for amateur performance, Constance Garnett was the first person to translate a Chekhov play into English (The … Continue reading
Posted in Edwardian English, Edwardian literature, Modern parallels, Personal commentary
Tagged Anton Chekhov, comments, Constance Garentt, Elizaveta Fen, George Calderon, Glasgow Repertory Theatre, John Galsworthy, John Russell Brown, Larus ridibundus, Laurence Senelick, Lydia Yavorskaya, Ronald Hingley, Royal National Theatre, The Cherry Orchard, The Seagull, The Stage Society
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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 →