Calderon was born in
St John's Wood, the fifth son of the Victorian painter
Philip Hermogenes Calderon, and educated at
Rugby and
Trinity College, Oxford, before training as a barrister. From 1895 to 1897 he worked in Russia as a teacher, journalist and scholar, then returned to England, learned several other Slavonic languages and in 1900 became an assistant librarian at the British Museum. During this time he pursued his research into Slavonic folklore, married, and published many stories, articles and translations. In 1903, Calderon left the British Museum to become a full-time writer. In 1906 he lived for two months on
Tahiti. On his return, he regularly reviewed for the
Times Literary Supplement. Calderon was the first person to translate into English and successfully direct a full-length play by
Anton Chekhov (
The Seagull, at Glasgow in 1909). He also published notable translations of Chekhov and
Ilya Tolstoy, and wrote several ballet libretti for
Michel Fokine. Between 1908 and 1910 Calderon worked closely with leaders of the
Women's National Anti-Suffrage League. His plays
The Fountain,
The Little Stone House and
Revolt were performed all over Britain between 1909 and 1913. In 1914 Calderon succeeded in enlisting in the British army at the age of 45, seeing action in
Flanders. He was killed at
Gallipoli on 4 June 1915. The book
Tahiti was posthumously published in 1921, to great acclaim, and in 1925 a production in London of Calderon's translation of
The Cherry Orchard established Chekhov as a new force in the English theatre. ==Works==