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The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was promoted by Karanacs 23:28, 10 July 2011 [1].

Harris's List of Covent Garden Ladies

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Harris's List of Covent Garden Ladies (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

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Nominator(s): Parrot of Doom 12:15, 11 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Forget what you've read about stuffy old-fashioned Georgian social values, the truth was that if you wanted a bit of hows-your-father, London, specifically Covent Garden, was the place to go. And if, once there, you wanted to know where the best prostitutes might be found, from out-of-work actresses to rich courtesans to rotten old hags, then Harris's List was what you bought - if you could afford it. Harris's List somehow escaped the censors for about 40 years, before a society of busybodies realised that its publishers (who remain largely anonymous) could be done on a trumped-up libel charge. Few copies remain today, but those that do provide a valuable insight into the seedier side of Georgian London. Parrot of Doom 12:15, 11 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Source review - spotchecks not done. Nikkimaria (talk) 13:25, 11 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

  • Missing bibliographic info for Raven 1992
    • Done.
  • FN 32: seems like the italicization should be almost the reverse of what it is now. Same for FN 59
    • That's a function of the template used, however, I added italics to the titles and it seems to have fixed it.
  • FN 45: need dash in page range. Also, is 1970 part of the title?
    • I use whatever formatting the page sourced uses, if it uses a hyphen then so do I. I fixed the year though both.
  • FN 48: should note that login is required
    • Done.
  • Denlinger 2002: number shouldn't be part of the title
    • Done.
  • Location for Henderson 1999 and Cruickshank 2010? Nikkimaria (talk) 13:25, 11 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • I don't have access to Henderson as I pulled a quote from a snippet view (judged the context as the same quote was used in another source). Fixed Cruikshank. Parrot of Doom 14:06, 11 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
      • Very quick driveby on Henderson—is the publisher really Longman? It's dated 1999, but AFAIK Pearson retired the Longman imprint in 1998 and rebranded everything as either Pearson Education or PearsonLongman. – iridescent 21:16, 11 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Inflation is fantastic, a guide on how to do it, "Priced in 1788 at two shillings sixpence, Harris's List was affordable for the middle classes, but expensive for a working class man." with footnotes. This contextualises any other use of 18th century figures adequately for a reader. Fifelfoo (talk) 05:58, 15 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Image review

  • File:Covent_garden_c1720.jpg: use creation or publication rather than upload date

Licensing and captions are otherwise unproblematic. Nikkimaria (talk) 17:28, 24 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

published from 1757–1795 - looks odd combining from and a dash --> "published from 1757 to 1795"?
Agreed, fixed.
between 120–190 - ditto "+ and" instead of the dash..?
Changed to "about 120..."


frowned on --> "frowned upon"?
I think upon is a little formal for discussion of prostitutes and the like. The two words are interchangeable. Parrot of Doom 21:33, 27 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
ok, I'll pay that. Casliber (talk · contribs) 01:51, 28 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Some editions may have been written by Samuel Derrick (why the bold?)
Well, I was about to create Samuel Derrick for real, replacing the redirect, but someone else decided to restore it and bold the text, so I didn't bother. I'm not sure if things need to be bolded in that instance or not.
I de-bolded as it ain't in the lead...Casliber (talk · contribs) 10:30, 28 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Covent Garden was not spared, and the Shakespear's Head Tavern was raided. - lack of a time attached leaves the reader hanging a bit. Can any temporal addendum be added at all?
Same time as the general raids (hence, "not spared"). There's no precise date AFAIK. Parrot of Doom 09:28, 28 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Well if it can't be added then it can't be added....Casliber (talk · contribs) 10:30, 28 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Otherwise a fun read and eminently and imminently supportable :) Casliber (talk · contribs) 02:46, 28 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Support Comments - Dana boomer (talk) 14:08, 29 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

  • Lead, "A Grub Street hack," In this context, "hack" is not easily understood, at least to me. Perhaps this is a bit of British English with which I'm not familiar? Repeated in "Possible authors" section.
    • Hack linked.
  • Commentary, "Some lists also contain defences of prostitution; earlier editions claim that the trade guarded against the seduction of young women, provided an outlet for frustrated married men, and kept other young men from "le péche [sic] que la Nature désavoue [the sin that Nature repudiates]", or sodomy." Some of this sentence seems redundant to the preamble described in the first paragraph of the Content section.
    • The point is to introduce the reader to the idea that the lists' authors were ambivalent toward homosexuality. The previous mention of the preamble is just a physical description of the first pages of each list.
  • Commentary, "and while generally, most entries in the lists look favourably on those women who refrained from swearing" I'm not understanding the need for the comma?
    • Breathing space.
  • Possible authors, "who lived with the actress Jane Lessingham," Is this actress well known in Britain? Because I have never heard of her, and so my first thought was "so why should I care that he lived with her?"
    • A notable actress who doesn't have an article yet. She has an OED entry.
  • Possible authors, "Born perhaps around 1720–1730," Is "perhaps around" redundant?

Overall a very nice (and very interesting) article on a publication that I had never heard of. I kept getting sidetracked reading all of the articles about the madams and prostitutes though - a treasury of Wikipedia information that I had not stumbled across before. A few comments above; when these are resolved I shall be happy to support. Dana boomer (talk) 01:23, 29 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Fair enough on the above. Everything else looks good, so changing to support. Great work! Dana boomer (talk) 14:08, 29 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Support I read through this some time ago, and I can't find any serious issues now Jimfbleak - talk to me? 14:27, 30 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks all. I have a couple more sentences to add on the Roaches (publishers), but nothing critical. Just been a bit preoccupied lately with other matters. I'll do it in the next few days. Parrot of Doom 14:47, 30 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: A couple of prose points in the lead:-

I'll try to read the rest in the next day or so, and leave further comments. An intriguing article, I must say. Brianboulton (talk) 22:17, 3 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]


The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
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