Talk:Pauline Baynes/GA1

GA Review

Passed. 00:55, 31 March 2024 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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Nominator: Chiswick Chap (talk · contribs)

Reviewer: Simongraham (talk · contribs) 17:09, 25 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I will start a review soon. simongraham (talk) 17:09, 25 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Many thanks, I think you'll find it's pretty tidy, but if there are any issues I'll aim to work through them promptly. All the best, Chiswick Chap (talk) 18:37, 25 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

A pleasure, Chiswick Chap. This looks a really interesting article to add to Women in Green. simongraham (talk) 00:04, 27 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Comments

The article is of significant length, with 4,715 words of readable prose.
The lead looks of a relatively short at 132 words. Suggest extending this to give a wider coverage of the article.
- Extended.
  - Thank you. I've extended it further. Please do edit it if you like.
77.4% of authorship is by Niggle1892 and 10.4% by Chiswick Chap, with another 92 other contributors also participating.
It is currently assessed as a B class article.

Assessment

The six good article criteria:

It is reasonable well written.
the prose is clear, concise, and understandable to an appropriately broad audience; spelling and grammar are correct;
- Language used generally seems appropriate.
Noted.
- More clearly attribute statements like "She couldn't draw lions."
Done several.
- Add comma after "She was the first illustrator of some of J. R. R. Tolkien's minor works".
Added.
- Rephrase "regularly rejoining his family" to ensure verbal agreement.
Done.
- Add comma before "Tolkien decided that Baynes was not the right artist".
Added.
- Add comma after "A companion map for The Hobbit".
Added.
- Is there a reason for the brackets around "(Some of the illustrations were omitted when the book was reissued by other publishers twelve years later.)"?
Gone.
- I can see no other obvious spelling or grammar issues.
Noted.
it complies with the Manual of Style guidelines for lead, layout and word choice.
- The lead is split into two short paragraphs. This is suboptimal for mobile readers.
Closed up.
- Other short paragraphs also appear in the body, especially in the Education section.
Closed up.
- The following are duplicate links: Brian Sibley, Dockenfield, Puffin Books, Rudyard Kipling.
Removed.
- The layout is otherwise consistent with the relevant Manuals of Style, including a nice infobox.
Thank you.
It is factually accurate and verifiable.
it contains a reference section, presented in accordance with the layout style guideline;
- A reference section is included, with sources listed.
all inline citations are from reliable sources;
- There is a weighting to primary sources. For example, "Ballantine's American edition of the book was issued with an alternative Baynes cover adapted from one of its interior illustrations." is referenced to the edition.
That is just a description of the book.
There may be a secondary source for these. For example, the archive of The Bookseller has over 170 entries based on a search of her name.[[1]]
Maybe, but it's not necessary. In book articles, straight description of the book (what cover, what plot, ...) is taken to be cited to the book itself. So, for example, plot sections are never cited, for that exact reason.
The example I gave above is "Ballantine's American edition of the book was issued with an alternative Baynes cover adapted from one of its interior illustrations." Confirmed that the covers are different visually. Removed statement that the cover was adapted from an interior illustration as OR.
- Other key sources are her obituaries in The Guardian and The Independent.
- Cory 2019 seems to be the obituary in the Telegraph.[[2]]
- Eccleshare 2006 lacks a page number.
The entry name is sufficient for dictionaries.
Fair enough.
- Source 8 (volume 2 of Lewis' Letters) lists multiple pages and is used multiple times, while sources 56 to 67 cover single pages in this and other volumes.
Merged some refs.
- Spot check confirms the obituaries in the The Guardian and The Independent.
- WP:AGF for the offline sources.
it contains no original research;
- The sentence "When he discussed Baynes with his friends, he revealed quite how much her work had disappointed him." is unsourced.
Removed.
- The bibliography is unreferenced.
It consists exclusively of citations. All we're saying here is that she was illustrator of these works, i.e. she'd appear as an author/illustrator, which is a standard item of bibliographic data.
I understand. However, it is unsourced at the moment. Is there another way to confirm this is not OR?
Something that consists only of sources cannot be described as unsourced. Anyone who looks up any of the sources cited will find that Baynes is indeed there as an author/illustrator. We do not source bibliographies; take a look at Charles Dickens bibliography to see that this is so.
An unsourced list is still an unsourced list, even if it is one of books. For efficacy, however, and assuming good faith, I will assess the claim by spot checks. Spot checks of front covers confirm she is the author of Good King Wenceslas, I Believe: The Nicene Creed and Psalm 8: How Excellent is Thy Name!.

Spot checks of Adams 1972, Blyton 1973, Dickinson 1983, Golden 1983, Lewis 1956, Ransome 1974 and Green 1983, Harris 1978, Tolkien 1961, Tolkien 1971 and Tolkien 1981, confirm her as listed as illustrator for these.

Updated The Borrowers (isbn 0140301100), The Borrowers Afield (isbn 0140301380), The Borrowers Afloat (isbn 0140304584) and The Borrowers Aloft (isbn 0140304533) as published in 1980 based on editions seen.

For future reference, Charlotte Huck's children's literature[[3]] lists her as the illustrator of Lewis' books on page 151. There are also publications mentioned in Baines 2010[[4]] and her entry in the Oxford DNB, includes which edition of Watershed Down that she illustrated.
it contains no copyright violations nor plagiarism;
- Earwig gives a 43.5% chance of copyright violation, which means is very high. The largest similarity is with a page on ranker.com[[5]] dated 12 August 2023 that has an almost duplication of the lead.
So they copied us.
- The second listed, at 36.3%, is from a biography[[6]]. The majority of similarities are book titles, but there is some close phrasing, including "a pet monkey that had been trained to take tiffin at the tea table" c.f. "from the family's pet monkey, who was trained to take tiffin at the tea table". This sentence is also almost directly taken from the obituary in the Telegraph.
Trimmed.
Excellent work.
It is broad in its coverage
it addresses the main aspects of the topic.
- Although it generally remains focused, her life is also put in context with the authors for whom she illustrated, Lewis and Tolkien.
- While the books she authored are not as well known as those that she illustrated, is there any information on how they were received? Are there any critical assessments or figures for sales?
As usual it's extremely hard to get sales figures, but it's surely safe to say these were minor works.
it stays focused on the topic without going into unnecessary detail (see summary style).
- This is generally so.
It has a neutral point of view.
it represents viewpoints fairly and without editorial bias, giving due weight to different points of view.
- There are separate sections for each of Tolkien's books but not Lewis' and the Narnia spin-off books are listed under the subsection The Chronicles of Narnia.
Moved spin-off books paragraph.
- There are significant sections detailing the views of Baynes on Lewis. Do we have anything similar for her relationship with Tolkien? I see in some of the sources that it is claimed that he "found" her. Do we know any more about what he thought of her or her of him? If not, it feels that there is undue weight on her relationship with Lewis.
Tolkien certainly didn't go into that sort of detail; the article already states clearly what he thought of her, and it's evident his opinion wasn't much different from Lewis's. I've trimmed the Lewis discussion to be more like the Tolkien section.
Excellent.

I feel that some of the material risks presenting unnecessarily controversy. For example, "she earned only a fixed fee, with no royalties; she regretted that the commission had overshadowed the rest of her work." Compare:
Perkins 2015: 19 implies most illustration work is fixed-fee and royalties are atypical.[[7]]

Hammond & Scull 2008: 5—6 "Throughout her career, Pauline Baynes was best known as the "Narnia artist"; and while she was sorry that this overshadowed her many other accomplishments, she continued her association with the Narnia books for more than half a century, producing (among much else) color wraparound covers for the Puffin paperbacks (1959-65), the poster Map of Narnia and the Surrounding Countries (1972), and new color plates and stunning panoramic endpapers (showing the coming of spring to Narnia after the long winter) for a special edition of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (1991)."[[8]] I read this that did not feel negatively about her work for Lewis, but was rather sorry that her substantial other material was not noticed as much as she ended up being pigeon-holed.

Removed the bit you quoted, it's not essential.
Yes. That has led me to think how much of this is encyclopedic. I think it is OK for GA but would be interested in the view if you want to go further.

It seems that Lewis' negative comments on her were nothing to the scathing from Sayers. For example, see Comes 1992: 199—200.[[9]]
Added and cited.
It is stable.
it does not change significantly from day to day because of any ongoing edit war or content dispute.
- There is no evidence of edit wars.
It is illustrated by images and other media, where possible and appropriate.
images are tagged with their copyright statuses, and valid fair use rationales are provided for non-free content;
- The infobox image is covered by a fair use tag.
- The Hoard by Pauline Baynes.jpg and Entering the Dawn Treader.jpg are listed as copyrighted (or assumed to be copyrighted) and unlicensed. They have fair use rationale but not tags.
- Other images have relevant PD or CC licenses.
images are relevant to the topic, and have suitable captions.
- All images have captions that show relevance, although there are as many illustrations created by others and those by Baynes. I understand the fair use rationales, but I wonder if there are any of her other works that could be included rather than those who influenced her.
The rules make including any artworks by a still-in-copyright artist very difficult, as a fresh rationale has to be discovered for each work, and reviewers take a dim view of providing any sort of illustrative sample.
Understood.

@Chiswick Chap: Excellent work. Please take a look at more comments above and ping me when you would like me to take another look. simongraham (talk) 00:21, 27 March 2024 (UTC) simongraham - all done to date. Chiswick Chap (talk) 08:55, 27 March 2024 (UTC) simongraham - done. Chiswick Chap (talk) 17:03, 27 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

simongraham - pings may not have worked, retrying. We can move the bibliography to a separate article if desired. Chiswick Chap (talk) 08:58, 29 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Chiswick Chap: I have considered your suggestion of splitting the article and I do not think it is necessary. Performing spot checks on the primary sources took considerable time. I request you find secondary consolidating sources in the future, especially for those whose involvement may not be obvious on the front cover. However, these are now complete, along with the extended lead and minor edits to the body. I believe that this article meets the criteria to be a Good Article.

Pass simongraham (talk) 00:55, 31 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.