Talk:Satan's Harvest Home/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: hamiltonstone (talk) 04:43, 22 January 2010 (UTC) The article is generally well-written, neutral, stable and appropriately referenced. The images appear in order, though i feel the second Hogarth illustration may be too far removed from the subject of the article.

The article covers the major aspects of the topic with two possible exceptions:

• no discussion of possible authorship or who funded publication. If the editor can confirm none of the sources discuss this, then there is nothing to be done.
• only one sentence on its contemporary reception. Did no other publication of the period make reference to the pamphlet? If it was reportedly a best-seller, then there must be some information about its sale. Can nothing more be gleaned?

There is only one specific query i have regarding the text. It concerns this sentence:

• "(The perceived tendency of homosexual relationships to disregard, and thus to weaken, class boundaries was a commonly-voiced contemporary objection.[14])" I cannot quite foolow how this text is a bracketed response to that which preceded it, nor to what the objection is being made.

If the nominator could respond to the above, the article shoudl readily qualify at GA. hamiltonstone (talk) 04:43, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

Responses

Many thanks for taking a look at this, Hamiltonstone. Responses:

• The sources don't discuss authorship beyond noting that some of the text was culled from elsewhere (as discussed in the outline section). If that's not clear enough in the text I can make it more so.

• OK.

• I will hit the library again to see what primary sources the modern scholarship cites re. the pamphlet's popularity.

• I've had another go at that class boundaries sentence - is that clearer?

• Yes, that is much better. I will await the results of your outing to the library. regards, hamiltonstone (talk) 22:31, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

More after I've been to the library. Gonzonoir (talk) 09:26, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

OK, a slightly vexing library trip has taken place:

1. The claim that the pamphlet was a bestseller comes from Katherine Crawford, but she leaves it frustratingly uncited. I have checked over her references and can't see any overt evidence for the claim. I've left it in the text, but I've tweaked the phrasing to make it clearer that this is the assertion of one scholar.

1. Conversely, the source I found modern scholars citing in their discussions of the pamphlet was the 1877 Index Librorum Prohibitorum. I've added a reference to that in the article, but I am not sure how much further to expand on it. The Index describes the text (at least by the high Victorian period) as "rare"; the Index itself was noted for covering books that had been scarce, secret, hard to come by, and actively suppressed. ([1], [2]). If anything, to me that makes it sound rather unlikely that the thing was an overt best-seller. It seems likelier that it would have been an underground, pirated thing for which reliable sales figures would be hard to come by. But I'm clearly into original research territory at this point.

So I'm not sure what more to do: I do not think there is any published historiography for this text, and what I can piece together about its publication history wouldn't pass the WP:OR bar. I could add to the article some details about the kinds of text the Index covers, and leave readers to draw their own conclusions, but that still feels a bit too POV-y to me. Hamiltonstone, what do you think (or is this out of the GA review remit)? Gonzonoir (talk) 22:18, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

It looks to me as though you have done an excellent job in circumstances where the sources are not helpful. One wonders whether Crawford misinterpreted the item's inclusion in the Index as meaning the article was significant in its time. Either way, as you recognise, we are off into the realm of OR. I'm happy with it as it stands. Well done. Regardsn, hamiltonstone (talk) 00:53, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

Awesome - thanks for taking the time to do the review, hamiltonstone. Gonzonoir (talk) 08:45, 8 February 2010 (UTC)