Talk:Helene Scheu-Riesz/GA1

GA Review
The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.''

Reviewer: Kusma (talk · contribs) 23:20, 6 March 2023 (UTC)

Section by section review

 * Lead: "After the death of her husband": split long sentence.
 * ✅ SusunW (talk) 16:25, 7 March 2023 (UTC)


 * Early life and family: suggest to explain what the "settlement movement" was (I thought at first it was related to Jewish settlement).
 * In women's history it is only one thing. I always forget that women's history is not taught and people in general do not know it. Added explanation and citation. SusunW (talk) 16:25, 7 March 2023 (UTC)


 * Interesting that she became Protestant in Catholic Austria.
 * British influence? SusunW (talk) 16:25, 7 March 2023 (UTC)
 * Seems likely that's the case. I cannot confirm she joined the Austrian Protestant church, but her daughter said she was a Quaker and Cohen's work said one of the first in Austria. Made that change. SusunW (talk) 20:23, 7 March 2023 (UTC)


 * They must have been rich; do you know if this is her fortune or his or both?
 * No idea. If I were guessing hers. Her dad was a wine merchant, his was a musician. Intuitively my brain says luxury goods, vs. starving artist. SusunW (talk) 16:25, 7 March 2023 (UTC)
 * According to Dreher 2001, she was an only child (you have "only daughter"), so it does seem likely it was her fortune, but that's probably not for the article :) —Kusma (talk) 21:10, 7 March 2023 (UTC)


 * Activism: realized that dream Is it a "dream"? Not totally clear what the dream is, and perhaps better to reformulate "She was able to realize these plans in 1923 when she founded her own publishing house"?
 * ✅ SusunW (talk) 16:25, 7 March 2023 (UTC)


 * She continued to work with WILPF in the United States, through the North Carolina branch, giving lectures to women's groups. The reader who reads only the body (something I often do) does not yet know when she goes to the US.
 * Good catch. Changed it to read "After moving to the United States, she continued" SusunW (talk) 16:25, 7 March 2023 (UTC)


 * Writing: It seems unlikely she produced translations from Japanese and Bulgarian. There must have been some other people involved.
 * Perhaps, but sourcing doesn't indicate that. SusunW (talk) 16:25, 7 March 2023 (UTC)
 * The Handbuch der österreichischen Kinder- und Jugendbuchautorinnen which I just found, says one of her granddaughter married a Japanese diplomat... SusunW (talk) 17:51, 7 March 2023 (UTC)
 * I've looked at the sources, and it does indeed look like she wrote books with Japanese and Bulgarian fairy tales. Of course that doesn't mean she translated them from Japanese or Bulgarian; she could just as well have taken them from other sources and rewritten them for children. So please ignore my objection. —Kusma (talk) 20:59, 7 March 2023 (UTC)


 * The libretto for Karl Sipek Siebach's opera The Betrothal in San Domingo: something is wrong here; I can't find any evidence that this opera existed. For example, it is not mentioned in this related thesis: A Google search for "Karl Sipek Siebach" also returns only the Guardian article. It is possible that she did adapt Kleist's Die Verlobung in St. Domingo, but I would like to see more evidence.
 * I searched for him too when I wrote it, but could find nada. I removed it. SusunW (talk) 16:25, 7 March 2023 (UTC)


 * Do you know anything about the reception of her books and the success of her publishing house?
 * Hard question, difficult to find reviews of her work, but something to explore. But, this says the publishing house was influential and this seems to indicate that although juvenile publications were very competitive, she took over the Konegen publications, which had formerly, along with Gerlach's children's library been the leading children's publishers. I've added a bit on it. "At the time, the two leading children's publishers were Gerlachs Jugendbücherei (Gerlach's Youth Library) and Konegens Kinderbücher (Konegen's Children's Books) and she took over the market share of Konegen" ... if that works, then done. SusunW (talk) 17:51, 7 March 2023 (UTC)
 * That's fine. It confirms it was sort of a big deal. —Kusma (talk) 20:59, 7 March 2023 (UTC)


 * Relocation to the United States: what is the Islands Press, a publishing house or a printing press or something else?
 * Handbuch der österreichischen Kinder- und Jugendbuchautorinnen says a publishing house active from 1941-1954. Added. SusunW (talk) 17:51, 7 March 2023 (UTC)

An enjoyable read; I'll go through the criteria and sourcing in more detail later and may have more comments. —Kusma (talk) 14:55, 7 March 2023 (UTC)
 * I truly, truly appreciate your constructive comments. Very helpful in improving the article. SusunW (talk) 17:51, 7 March 2023 (UTC)
 * I have one that I hope will be useful: we do have an article about her daughter, Elizabeth Close, who was an important architect in Minneapolis. You should link to that :) —Kusma (talk) 20:59, 7 March 2023 (UTC)
 * Very cool and interesting that started that article too. :) SusunW (talk) 22:10, 7 March 2023 (UTC)
 * And could you please triple check what you say about her son Friedrich Scheu? He probably was older than 26 when he died in 1985. —Kusma (talk) 21:06, 7 March 2023 (UTC)
 * checking...SusunW (talk) 22:10, 7 March 2023 (UTC)
 * No idea. Clearly he wasn't dead until 1985, so I removed that text and added the link. SusunW (talk) 22:24, 7 March 2023 (UTC)

General comments and GA criteria
Looking forward to reviewing this. Expect comments over the next couple of days. —Kusma (talk) 23:20, 6 March 2023 (UTC)
 * Sourcing: Please do not use Geschichtewiki, it is a wiki and of unknown reliability. I suggest to use their source instead: Felix Czeike, Historisches Lexikon Wien (note that the wiki and the source say she was born in Vienna). AEIOU, another good Austrian encyclopaedia, has Olomouc.
 * This will take a bit of time, but I'm on it. SusunW (talk) 18:42, 7 March 2023 (UTC)
 * Okay, I was able to replace all of the links in that source to other more reliable sources. In doing so, I learned she was a Quaker and she attended the DC congress in 1924. SusunW (talk) 22:02, 7 March 2023 (UTC)


 * Consider using to mark German phrases for screenreaders etc.
 * I think I have marked them all, I tried to anyway. SusunW (talk) 18:42, 7 March 2023 (UTC)


 * Images are fine. It would be nice to have some of her books to look at, but I guess copyright is annoying to figure out for those.
 * Broad without unnecessary detail, neutral, stable. For "comprehensive" I would look also for some more reception of her work and how successful her activism was, but that's clearly not in the GA criteria.
 * Interesting how the "algorithms" change once an article is published. Previously, I could find very little on line about her. Now there are a lot more links, which might be really helpful for someone to use to expand the article. SusunW (talk) 22:02, 7 March 2023 (UTC)

I think I have now addressed your concerns. Really enjoyed working with you on this. I've queried a few things above, but if you concur with my analysis, I think we're done. If you have concerns, or there are issues, please ping me. SusunW (talk) 22:02, 7 March 2023 (UTC)


 * @SusunW, lots of good changes, but please see my comments about her children at the bottom of the previous section :) I'll comment on the sources later today or tomorrow, then it shouldn't be long. —Kusma (talk) 22:08, 7 March 2023 (UTC)
 * , please take your time. You know me. I'd rather focus on improving it than just let it ride. Besides which, having your German expertise (as opposed to my sole ability to count to 100 in German) is invaluable. SusunW (talk) 22:28, 7 March 2023 (UTC)
 * @SusunW, I'm going to try very hard not to let this article suck me into another rabbit-hole. This time, a very literal literary rabbit-hole: Scheu-Riesz made the second of all Translations of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland into German and the first of the Translations of Through the Looking-Glass into German. You can see this here in Warren Weaver's classic book on Alice translations. I happen to own also the most extensive modern book on Alice translations,, which includes an essay on the German translation that has two pages about Scheu-Riesz's Alice (nothing about the translation of the second volume, though). I'll email you some terrible photos in a moment, but I'll let you decide what to do with them. I will try not to research this further until I have finished some other projects :) —Kusma (talk) 22:53, 7 March 2023 (UTC)
 * And this is how it starts. Down the rabbit hole we go. SusunW (talk) 23:00, 7 March 2023 (UTC)
 * I have checked a few sources, and everything is fine (nice reliable secondary and some tertiary sources for the general bio, some more newspaper-based research for the time in the US). If you want to expand further, Dreher 2001 has a lot of great material and context that you haven't used yet. But this is enough for GA. —Kusma (talk) 09:10, 8 March 2023 (UTC)