User talk:Ammodramus/Archive 1

The Way We Live Now

Why not therefore move the synopsis now in the book article to the TV series article, and leave only a brief description of the plot (I have seen the TV show, but am not familiar with the book)? Norm mit (talk) 20:23, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

The Belton Estate

I made an infobox for the eventual article. The reference for the publisher and publication info is: The Belton Estate, Oxford University Press, Oxford and NY, 1986. If you need anything else just let me know.--I NEVER CRY 19:00, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

Moved infobox to article draft site

I'd say you're right about the preceded/followed. It does seem like useless info now that I think about it.--I NEVER CRY 21:57, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

The article is very impressive.--  I Never Cry  17:48, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for your compliment; and thanks again for finding the illustration, and for taking care of the infobox.

I see that you found the title-page image at archive.org. I hadn't known about this, and it looks like it might be a very useful source of illustrations. Do you know what copyright restrictions apply for uploading images from there to Commons? I ask because there's a specific illustration that I'd like to use in the Ralph the Heir article. I've found what looks like a usable version in archive.org, at [1]; but I suspect that you've looked into the copyright issues further than I have. Your advice would be greatly appreciated.

--Ammodramus (talk) 19:07, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

I take it that you want to use one of the Fraser illustrations? If so, go through that volume and pick the illustration you want to use, then tell me what page it's on. I can clean it up and upload it for you.

If you want to "harvest" these pdf images yourself:

View the pdf online (click "view online"). Find the page with the image you want. Magnify the page 2 or 3 times (this gives you a higher res/kb image). Right click it and save the picture. Take a look at the upload info from one of my Trollope title pages for the permission/author/etc info. Archive.org pdfs are in the public domain, and so, as far as I know, are out of copyright (as are the images in them).--  I Never Cry  20:29, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

Большое спасибо. I'll try to upload it myself, using your directions, and one of your Trollope page uploads as a template, since it'd be a useful thing for me to learn. If I run into problems, I'll ask for help. I shouldn't, though—I had no trouble downloading the illustration I wanted and then cropping it, though I might do it over again, since I didn't magnify the page as you suggest. Ammodramus (talk) 20:43, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

Seems to have worked very well. Thanks for your advice, and for putting me onto archive.com. Will keep it in mind for future articles. Ammodramus (talk) 21:14, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

Nice cleanup of the "big loaf" picture. I don't have anything like Photoshop, so all I can do is tilt and crop. Your version looks a lot better than mine did. Ammodramus (talk) 02:51, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

If you have any other images that need a little touch-up, let me know. It usually only takes me a few minutes.--  I Never Cry  03:19, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

Thanks once again. I might ask you for that before too many weeks have gone by; right now, I'm rereading The Claverings for an eventual article. I'll wait until the article's well under way before I decide which illustration to use, though. Would you rather that I upload the illustration to Commons and then send you a link to it, or tell you which page of which archive.org version it's on? I appreciate your help with this, and want to make it as easy and convenient as possible for you. Ammodramus (talk) 00:44, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

The easiest way to do it would be for you to upload the image you want, then post a thumbnail of it on my talk page, or place it in the article and leave a link to the article on my talk page. --I NEVER CRY 02:07, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

Carry Brattle: Henry Woods illustration

I'm currently working up an article on Trollope's The Vicar of Bullhampton, and have uploaded an illustration from archive.org. If it wouldn't be too much trouble, may I ask you to clean it up a bit? Like the illustration that we used for Ralph the Heir, it's a little yellowed. Thanks very much, both for your help in the past and for your prospective help on this one. --Ammodramus (talk) 22:37, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

The Vicar of Bullhampton

The pic is ready. Here, also, is the ISBN of the Oxford World's Classics edition, if it helps: ISBN 0192821636. --INeverCry 02:57, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

Looks great. Thanks, and thanks as well for pointing me at archive.org in the first place. Hope to have the article up within a few days. --Ammodramus (talk) 03:33, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

He Knew He Was Right

First edition?

According to the Oxford World's Classics edition of He Knew He Was Right, the serial edition was published by James Virtue, and the first book edition was published by Strahan and Company in May 1869. The 1869 versions I found on google books and archive.org are Strahan. I posted an illustration in the article, but I didn't want to change the publishing info without trying to find out where the "Smith and French" came from.--Жоффруа 23:51, 6 August 2011 (UTC)

No idea whence the "Smith and French". All of my sources concur that it was Strahan. I'll change it in the article's infobox. The article needs lots of work, but it's been a very long time since I've read the book and I'm not competent to do it right now. (One of the things it needed was an illustration, and you've provided an excellent one.)

You've done me an unintended favor by uploading the title page of the Strahan edition; I'm in the early stages of research for an article on Alexander Strahan, and I was going to search archive.org for the anchor-of-hope emblem as an illustration. Now I know exactly where to find one...

Could I ask you to help me, if you can do it without too much trouble, on The Vicar of Bullhampton, which is now in the writing stage? I've got an English-language source that informs me that there were two 19th-century Russian editions of the novel, one published in 1870 in Moscow and one in 1873 in St. Petersburg. Both, according to my source, were titled Bullhamptonsky Vikaryi. Unfortunately, the source doesn't give the title in the Cyrillic alphabet, nor does it say whether the two used the same translation, nor does it give publishers' names. If you can find any of these for me, I'd appreciate it greatly.

Ammodramus (talk) 02:35, 7 August 2011 (UTC)

LOL at the "new article". I did the same thing somehow. Sorry. The Russian title of The Vicar of Bullhampton is Булхэмптонский викарий. Finding the publishing info is tough, especially because The Vicar isn't one of his popular works, in Eng or Rus. My search in Rus came up short. I didn't even find any of Trollope's works on Lib.ru. I know that Trollope was usually published in The Russian Messenger in Moscow, and in Vestnik Evropy in St Petersburg, for whatever it's worth (probably not a whole lot). --Жоффруа 05:03, 7 August 2011 (UTC)

Trollope

I uploaded first edition title pages for The Three Clerks, Nina Balatka, Linda Tressel, The Bertrams, An Old Man's Love, The Golden Lion of Granpere, and Harry Heathcote of Gangoil, and an illustration for Miss Mackenzie, in case you need any of them in the future.--INeverCry 19:02, 7 August 2011 (UTC)

Many thanks. The Vicar of Bullhampton is going more slowly than I'd like; I haven't decided where to go after that, but The Bertrams and Nina Balatka are on the short list.

Happy to see that your retirement was a brief one—

Ammodramus (talk) 20:02, 7 August 2011 (UTC)

Your article on The Vicar already looks more impressive than most. I uploaded the first edition title page if you need it. Sooner or later I'm going to do some work on the Trollope article itself, and on the Frances Trollope article which is basically a stub.

Thanks for both the compliment and the illustration. I'm currently bogged down in the "Major themes" section. I found a useful quote for that section the other day, but didn't think to make a note of where, and now I can't find it again.

I'm contemplating further work on the Anthony Trollope article myself; specifically, on his attempts to develop an alter ego with Nina Balatka and Linda Tressel. (That, incidentally, is why Nina is on the list of articles to be developed soon.) Unfortunately, this happened chronologically in the middle of the paragraph about retirement from the Post Office; in order to keep it from looking like one of those nasty cut-and-paste edits, I'm probably going to have to rewrite a lot of the stuff around it.

Not sure what I'm going to do for further illustrations for Vicar. The article's probably going to be long enough to want more. However, I'm going to be inserting some stuff about Eliza Lynn Linton's "The Girl of the Period", and about Dion Boucicault's Formosa; I might use the photo of Linton that's at her article, and see if I can scour up something visual to go with Formosa. I like the Carry Brattle illustration that I've currently got in the infobox: the heavy black adds visual interest to the page, and the lines of her gaze and her body lead down into the text rather nicely.

--Ammodramus (talk) 23:37, 7 August 2011 (UTC)

If you want to use any more of the illustrations from the first edition, just give me the illustration title or titles from the list of illustrations and I'll do the rest.--INeverCry 00:14, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

Strahan

--INeverCry 18:08, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

The coverage of 19th century publishers on Wikipedia is badly lacking. I wrote an article on George Smith of Smith, Elder & Co. after being surprised that there was only a stub (soon to be expanded) on such a major publishing company. Other important companies (Chapman and Hall, Harper & Brothers, George Routledge and Sons) also need a lot of work.--INeverCry 19:57, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

Too true; and not just for publishers. I recently tried to Wikilink to the article on St. Paul's Magazine, and found that there wasn't any. One more item on my to-do list... --Ammodramus (talk) 01:34, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

Trollope template

Template:Anthony Trollope

Here's a new works template I made for Anthony Trollope.--INeverCry 18:23, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

Very nice; in going from one novel to another, it'll be faster and easier than going to the category first. I assume that it'll need to be updated manually when new articles are posted. (I've been travelling and have had very limited Internet access for a week or so, but should get back home tonight; and once I do, The Vicar will be taken from the table.) --Ammodramus (talk) 18:47, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

I figured that if any author needed a template it was Trollope with his prodigious output. New articles will require manual addition, as red links are advised against in the Navbox guidelines; which is good, because red links are a bit shoddy looking, especially when there would be so many.--INeverCry 19:12, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

I'm sorry to be forever pestering you with Trollope-related matters, but I'd like to make a suggestion regarding the new template. I just used it to get to Last Chronicle, and did a double-take when I didn't find it under "Novels". It was only after a minute that I realized that "Barsetshire novels" and "Palliser novels" were listed separately below.

This could cause confusion for readers who'd expect "Novels" to be a complete list of the author's novels. Might I suggest a re-ordering of things, with "Barsetshire novels" coming first, followed by "Palliser novels", followed in turn by what's now called simply "Novels", but which I'd re-title "Singleton novels", "Single novels", or something like.

I'm not sending this to you out of simple laziness on my part; since you created the template, and you've given more thought to it than I have, you may have considered and rejected such an approach. Let me know if that's the case, and I'll see if I can come up with a different idea.

--Ammodramus (talk) 23:43, 22 August 2011 (UTC)

I thought it was a bit clumsy, but I still haven't come up with a better way to list them. It might look strange to have the 2 series on top, followed by an "other" novels section 3 times as long. I was thinking of using a more elaborate template format. We'll see.--INeverCry 02:03, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

I've changed it. Take a look.--INeverCry 03:59, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

I'm not sure if the new version is going to remedy the problem. I'm afraid that a reader using the template for the first time would expect any novel by Trollope to appear in the "Novels" list, as I initially did when I tried to get to Last Chronicle. This would be doubly true for a reader who didn't know Trollope's work all that well, and who might not be aware that the twelve novels were grouped in two series.

Would you consider listing all of the novels, including the Barsetshire and Palliser novels, in the "Novels" section; then, in the "Novel series" section, link only to the Chronicles of Barsetshire and Palliser novels articles? (I assume that it's considered poor style to link to a given article twice within a template; if it's not, then keeping the "Novel series" section in its current state would be good.)

Of course, the two novel-series articles don't have a lot of useful content right now, and really need to be expanded. One more thing on the ever-growing to-do list...

--Ammodramus (talk) 15:11, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

As the template is now, if a reader looks at the article for The Warden he can see in the template that Barchester Towers is the next book in the series, and so on. If I put all the novels together, the two series will be mixed up, and if a reader looks at the Chronicles of Barsetshire or Palliser novels articles alone he would have to refer back to them to see the series order. As it is now, a reader can click on the Chronicles of Barsetshire or Palliser novels articles, see which novel is first in the series, click on it, and then see the exact order in the template at the bottom of each successive novel article. Maybe we could add "Stand alone" or "Single" to the "Novels" section, but I think that that might be overkill.--INeverCry 17:51, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

I don't think it'd be overkill, myself; in fact, I think it'd be a good idea. It'd put the reader on notice that the section is a subset of the novels, but not all of them, and that a novel not listed in that section should be sought elsewhere within the listings. The title "Novels" seems misleading to me, in implying that everything else is a non-novel. --Ammodramus (talk) 00:29, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

Vicar of Bullhampton

Pleased to report that The Vicar of Bullhampton is up at last. It went more slowly than I'd thought it would, but did so in a good way: I kept finding new material to include.

The article ran fairly long, and I had room and an appropriate place for your illustration of the first-edition title page; for which thanks once again, as for your work on the Carry Brattle illustration.

While writing the article, I had occasion to refer to Thomas Hay Sweet Escott, and was bothered by the absence of an article on him. A Google search, followed by a JSTOR search, turned up very little of use beyond an article on his tenure at the Fortnightly. That's yet another subject that I'll have to keep in mind the next time I get access to a decent university library.

--Ammodramus (talk) 00:30, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

The Vicar article is really good. I'd like to nominate it for good article status at some point. The only potential problem I saw was the lack of a ref for the 2nd paragraph of the lead.

"Reviews were generally less than positive; many reviewers and readers were not happy about the darker tone of Trollope's post-Barchester novels."

Without a ref, someone reviewing it will stick a "who?" tag at the end of it or a "citation needed" tag.

I added a ref for the 3rd paragraph.--INeverCry 02:03, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for your kind comments on the article, and of course for the contributions that you've made to it.

Per WP:LEADCITE, I think that the lead section's OK without citations. All of the material in it appears at greater length in the body of the article, where it's duly festooned with citations; and it's reasonably uncontroversial. Since the second and third lead paragraphs are summaries of material taken from many sources, each would require a long string of citations—redundant, and aesthetically displeasing.

I've changed your third-paragraph citation, since it appears to refer to Skilton's notes rather than to the novel itself. However, unless you feel strongly about it, I'd be inclined to remove it and leave the lead section unbecitationed.

--Ammodramus (talk) 15:37, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

I'm glad that one of us knows what he's doing... ;) --INeverCry 17:08, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

Good article nomination

I've nominated The Vicar of Bullhampton for good article status.--INeverCry 18:02, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the GA nomination, which I'll take as a compliment. I think, myself, that the "Reception" section is rather weak. Unfortunately, I do not have a good background for working on that sort of thing, which really requires a fairly thorough grounding in current trends in literary criticism. I've got similar problems working on "Major themes", although in this case I think it worked out OK. I'm much more comfortable working with historical material and provable facts than in an area so subjective.

That said, is there anything that I should be doing or watching concerning the GA process? I've never been through it.

--Ammodramus (talk) 00:40, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

I've only ever nominated 3 articles (all today). For the 2 Russian articles, Ivan Bunin and Aleksey Konstantinovich Tolstoy, I notified another very active editor of Russian articles, and I will probably tell several others about the nominations if he doesn't. The majority of my work is on Russian people and subjects, so I don't really know who would be most interested in the Vicar nomination.

The Reception section looks decent to me, but you should have a good ammount of time to improve it before any assessment happens. The assessment would probably end up being postponed if the Reception section was cited as being too short. I have an Oxford copy of the novel, with the usual detailed intro, but this is one of Trollope's novels that I haven't read yet, so I don't want to spoil it for myself.

I think the article is better by far than most of the book articles I've looked at.--INeverCry 02:00, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

In case you're not watching it, pleased to report that The Vicar of Bullhampton attained GA status. Thanks once again for the nomination, for the work on the illustrations, and for everything else you did to improve the article. Hope that your Russian articles will be ready for re-nomination soon. Ammodramus (talk) 00:28, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

Congrats on the GA. Let me know when you have another one ready for nomination. As for the Russian articles, I just wonder whether a reviewer will give us a problem over the references, which are 95% Russian language. I think I'll try one of them again soon.

Also, I remember you saying a while ago that you couldn't do much to edit images. I just wanted to suggest that you try GIMP (http://www.gimp.org/), which is free and almost as good as photoshop. It's really not that tough to use once you mess with it a bit, and it does pretty much anything you could want.--INeverCry 05:10, 22 October 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. At least in my case, the reviewer didn't say anything about the references. I assume that they'd be inclined to ding you if you used Russian-language sources when there were good English-language equivalents available; but if the information's not available по-английски, then there's no reason not to use other sources. That's one man's opinion, of course...

Just got Linux installed on an old laptop, and have downloaded some image-editing tools. It'll be a while before I have time to figure them out, but with luck they'll enable me to clean up some graphics. Although, of course, it's so easy for me to send you the URL and cry "Fix, please!" --Ammodramus (talk) 20:21, 22 October 2011 (UTC)

I had Mandrake Linux on a partition in 1999/2000, but I can't really remember how much I liked or disliked it.

Image editing is something of a form of meditation for me, so I welcome anything you need fixed.--INeverCry 20:50, 22 October 2011 (UTC)

Barnstar

		The Literary Barnstar
		For your article The Vicar of Bullhampton. INeverCry 22:38, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

Good Words/GA

I was able to find a vol 1 title page for the Good Words article.

In regard to the Russian articles, I don't want to go through the hassle of nominating them. I've seen some GA reviews where the references are really hacked at. Also, some of the dates and other details from the Russian sources don't agree with the available English sources. I'm happy with the quality of the articles without needing to see the green +. I'm going to stick to navboxes, lists, and pics.

I did nominate another article: The House in Paris, by Elizabeth Bowen. I didn't have anything at all to do with the article, I just found it and thought it was pretty impressive.--INeverCry 23:17, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

The American Senator

I found a pic for the article. What are your thoughts on another GA nomination? We could ask Malleus to review this one too.--INeverCry 22:36, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

Nice picture! The first-edition title-page shots are good, but the color and shape in this one adds a nice compositional element to the page—it breaks up the marching column of gray.

Abe Books has first edition pics of everything. I just never thought of using them before. They even have pics of Trollope's monthly numbers. Maybe I'll use some more stuff from there.--INeverCry 00:42, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

Re. GA, I don't think it merits one. Have you looked at the talk page, and read my brief but enlightening discussion with User:Sadads, who rated it? I think one of his points is dead-on: that it sounds like I'm inserting a lot of my own ideas rather than drawing them from good lit-crit sources. Unfortunately, rewriting it would be a major project; in fact, it'd be impossible for me right now, since I don't have access to a lot of the sources (I wrote it while staying with a friend who lives within easy walking distance of a good university library).

After a false start and a long delay, I'm back to reading The Bertrams; with luck, I'll have at least a plot summary and the outline of an article going by year's end. It'll be an interesting article to write, because most Trollope scholars seem to regard it as a fairly bad book. However, it's useful as an indicator of Trollope's early views on matters religious—George Bertram is mildly condemned for rejecting the literal truth of Genesis in it, while a few years later Trollope was supporting Bishop Colenso for doing that very thing. Ammodramus (talk) 23:39, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

Ha Ha! I didn't even make it out of the driveway on that one! I've got some Trollope on my reading list too; namely La Vendee, John Caldigate, Mr. Scarborough's Family and some of his stories. A while back, I got half-way through The Small House at Allington, but I couldn't take any more of Crosby or Lily. So far I've liked The Macdermots of Ballycloran, The Kellys and the O'Kellys, Dr. Wortle's School, Rachel Ray, Harry Heathcote, and his English stories.--INeverCry 00:42, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

I haven't read any of the three novels on your to-do list. Most of the sources I've read say that La Vendee is pretty bad. I'd like to read, and then write an article on, John Caldigate, since I read that an important event in the book involves a technical point concerning mail—and that Trollope, high in the Post Office as he was, got it wrong. I won't say more, lest I spoil the book for you (although Trollope himself didn't like keeping secrets from the reader; there's an enjoyable passage about that subject in Barchester Towers, Chapter 15). I made it through Small House, and have re-read it several times; I've never rid myself of the desire to slap Lily when she's doing her wounded-fawn thing, but the passages involving Mr. Palliser and Lady Dumbello keep bringing me back to the book.

Almost finished reading The Bertrams. I finished it the last time I ventured upon it, but by the time I got done, I was deep in an article on an entirely different subject (Battery White, a Civil War site in South Carolina), and by the time I was done with that I didn't remember The Bertrams well enough to write a reasonably error-free plot summary.

Re. American Senator: Are you sure that the image from Abe Books is copyright-safe? I see copyright notices at the bottom of the webpage that you link to. Bear in mind that a derivative work can be copyright even if it depicts a public-domain subject: as I understand it, a photo of any subject, PD or not, is copyrightable as a work by the photographer. Ammodramus (talk) 01:05, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

I don't know (my favorite answer). I'd be surprised if anyone ever bothered with it, but that pic is basically the only show in town. I could always upload a 1st American or Canadian edition title page, but that's a bit cheesy.--INeverCry 01:37, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

Trollope; Rachel Ray

I found an illustration for Barchester Towers - tell me what you think of it. I would think that the man leaning over Mrs. Proudie is the Bishop, the man with the hat is the Warden, and the one behind the archdeacon is Mr. Slope. I've also started adding borders to white title pages, like the one in The Warden, so that it looks more like an actual page than text floating in the info box. INeverCry 00:35, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

I found another nice illustration for The Eustace Diamonds. INeverCry 01:29, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

Here's (Rachel Ray) another of your articles that looks awfully close to GA material. The "major themes" section is a bit light, but otherwise I don't think it would be that tough to get it passed. Any interest? If you ever want to nominate it, I could do the review. It's been a few years since I read it, but it's one of my favorites along with The Macdermots. Have you read his "The Courtship of Susan Bell"? It's been said that "Susan Bell" was something of a practice run for Rachel Ray. I love them both. INeverCry 00:57, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

Nice illustrations. I also like your device of putting the border around the title-page images; as you said, it makes the illustration look a lot more like an illustration, and not like more text.

Re-reading Rachel Ray, I don't think it's ready for GA status. As you point out, the major-themes section is pretty slim. Furthermore, there's nothing whatsoever about its reception by present-day critics. That's partly because present-day critics don't seem to have paid a great deal of attention to it; but we'd need a source to say so, plus a summary of major recent criticism.

Unfortunately, I've been hard at work in a different corner of the vineyard, and have had no time for Trollope-related articles at all. I've written a plot summary for The Bertrams, but haven't got beyond that. Ammodramus (talk) 21:37, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

Criticism is what I have the hardest time with in articles, especially my newest projects George Crabbe and James Hogg. I donated my Oxford World's Classics copy of RR to the Sal. Army a while back, so I'll have to get a new one at some point, as this would be the best source of modern criticism I could think of. The preview of it on Amazon might show the whole intro though. It's been 5+ years since I read it. I remember reading the whole thing through in one 12 hour stretch. I'm reading Scott's Waverly at the moment. INeverCry 00:07, 10 April 2012 (UTC)