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Lives of the Most Eminent Literary and Scientific Men

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Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch • Watch peer review

This peer review discussion has been closed.
I would like to eventually take this article to FAC, so please critique accordingly. Awadewit (talk) 14:35, 11 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

  • I'm trying to get my head round exactly what is what in the Cyclopedia. 5 cabinets, 61 titles, 133 volumes. Would it be right to say that Lives of the Most Eminent Literary and Scientific Men is an informal, general term for the two titles Lives of the Most Eminent Literary and Scientific Men of Italy, Spain and Portugal (subdivided into 3 volumes) and Lives of the Most Eminent Literary and Scientific Men of France (subdivided into two volumes)? If so, were there other titles called 'Lives of the Most Eminent Literary and Scientific Men of...' or was that it (Italy, Spain, Portugal and France). Was there, for example, a title called 'Lives of the Most Eminent Literary and Scientific Men of the United Kingdom'? (Or even America). And how many titles and volumes were there in the Biography Cabinet, as opposed to the other Cabinets? Carcharoth (talk) 16:54, 12 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • You've got it right. There were other Lives - I have an article on the Cyclopaedia which lists all of the volumes, if you would like to see them. I'm not sure how many titles were in the "Biography" cabinet. I will check a couple of places and try to find out. Awadewit (talk) 13:42, 13 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from Ealdgyth (talk · contribs)

  • You said you wanted to know what to work on before taking to FAC, so I looked at the sourcing and referencing with that in mind. I reviewed the article's sources as I would at FAC. The sourcing looks good.
Hope this helps. Please note that I don't watchlist Peer Reviews I've done. If you have a question about something, you'll have to drop a note on my talk page to get my attention. (My watchlist is already WAY too long, adding peer reviews would make things much worse.) 00:28, 16 June 2008 (UTC)
Comments from GA Reviewer

Quite a thorough job. Most of my comments about this article are already at the GA Review subpage. I was most interested in the style of working reception/commentary into the various subsections as opposed to its own section for discussion/analysis. I found this style unique and refreshing, though others may take issue with it. Feel free to drop me a note if/when this articles goes up for WP:FAC discussion. Cirt (talk) 18:14, 19 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by Qp10qp

A very thorough and detailed article on a little-known encyclopedia: another highly valuable gem from Awadewit. Quite tricky material to organise, as well, I should think.

  • The prospectus assured its readers ... This sentence seems unconnected with and disruptive of the passage that contains it. I wonder if it might go better at the end of the previous paragraph, which is more to do with the intended audience and the advertising.
  • The overall project may have run into difficulty because it overpaid well-known writers. Because this is the first mention of any financial difficulties (it only says in the lead that it wasn't a bestseller), I was lost for context here. Does the sentence take it as read that it did run into difficulties and speculate about the reason; or is the sentence merely wondering if it did run into difficulties?
  • Rewritten to make it clear there were financial difficulties and this may have been one of the reasons for them. I thought this fit in the section about famous writers, but do you think it should be moved to the next paragraph, which discusses the fortunes of the CC? Awadewit (talk) 16:16, 23 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
No. Now that it is made clear, it helps prepare the reader for the details later. qp10qp (talk) 01:39, 26 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Lardner himself may also have become less interested in the project, as he stopped signing the business ledger after the middle of 1838. Since we are never told about any difficulties other than poor sales, I wondered about the significance of this sentence. It is probably my fault, but I don't know the significance of stopping signing the business ledger, whatever that is. Does the word "interest" here refer to enthusiasm, or did Lardner withdraw financially?
  • When was the last volume published?
I just wasn't quite clear that the five Lives volumes that Mary Shelley worked on were all the volumes of Lives (No German or British lives, etc?). I assume, then, that the French Lives were the last volume of the Lives. qp10qp (talk) 01:39, 26 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
1846 for the CC, 1839 for the French Lives - the last of the volumes mentioned here. There were other Lives, yes. Awadewit (talk) 02:38, 26 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Four thousand copies of the first edition of the early volumes were probably printed, but the print run would have fallen to 2,500 as the sales did not pick up after 1835. Why "would have fallen"? Is this an educated guess by your source or did this happen?
  • Bennett suggests (An Introduction, 108) that a recently published letter shows that Mary Shelley wrote the life of Ercilla too.
  • I was relying on the editors of the Pickering and Chatto edition, since that is the only edition of MS's works to include the Lives. They analyze the authorship of each "Life". They analyze both internal evidence (writing style and sources) and external evidence (letters and records of payment). I won't go into the internal evidence here, unless you want me to. They quote the letter referred to in Bennett, but conclude that it does not necessarily imply authorship, and note that Lardner paid for this life in 1830, before MS began working on the project. I can send you the page from the introduction, if you want. Awadewit (talk) 16:16, 23 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
No, that's fair enough. qp10qp (talk) 01:39, 26 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • On letters, Mary Shelley says in one of them that she preferred writing the Spanish lives to the French. Should that go in? She also says somewhere (or appears to: it is somehat opaque) that she is better at writing biographies than at "romancing", which is an interesting thing to say. Have you come across that? (Selected Letters, pp. 271, 325)
Smashing. qp10qp (talk) 01:39, 26 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • While her politics are less overt in the Lives than in other works ... Is this so? Bennett (109) says that "the Lives, like the novels ... reflect her reformist agenda". Kucich talks about this a lot. Also, I feel that this statement is undermined by what you quote Nora Crook as saying and by the rest of what has just gone before. And, to look at it from the other angle, one might say that politics are not overt in Matilda at all.
  • pirated: can it be made clear what this means at this time and in context? Was it legal or illegal for the American edition to come out?
  • I believe it was illegal in Britain to copy these works but legal in America (there were no complicated international copyright agreements yet!) - is this worth explaining? Awadewit (talk) 16:16, 23 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
It does strike me that if there were no laws against it then it wasn't, strictly speaking, piracy—just unauthorised. qp10qp (talk) 01:39, 26 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I believe from the British POV it was piracy. :) Awadewit (talk) 02:38, 26 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • In the section "Mary Shelley's contributions", I feel there is too much quoting going on. We are all different, but I try to avoid two quotes in one sentence, quotes in successive sentences, and quotes that could be readily paraphrased.
That helps a lot. qp10qp (talk) 01:39, 26 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Good stuff, as always. qp10qp (talk) 13:53, 22 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

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