Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of women novelists before Jane Austen


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was   delete. The WP:SALAT and WP:IINFO arguments seem to carry the day here. There is some interest in reconfiguring/retitling this as a different list, but I'm not seeing any consensus on how exactly that should be done or even if it's desirable. Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 14:33, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

List of women novelists before Jane Austen

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This rather arbitrary criterion fails WP:SALAT. Austen (while a superlative writer) did not immediately and radically revolutionize how women novelists went about their business. Clarityfiend (talk) 15:45, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

Most female novelists notable enough to be included in this list already have their own pages. This list would best be merged with the Jane Austen main page, but probably shouldn't be a stand-alone page. Slayer (talk) 17:09, 19 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Delete per WP:IINFO. Erpert (let's talk about it) 18:13, 19 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Comment No reason at all to merge this with Jane Austen. The only connection to her is that, for persons who consider Austen to be the first female novelist in history, there there was a book called Mothers of the Novel: 100 good women writers before Jane Austen that mentioned novels that were written by females prior to Sense and Sensibility in 1811.  Perhaps the article can survive by being about the book, assuming it was notable; or, if not that, someone can make a "List of 18th century women writers" and a "List of 19th century women writers".  I agree with Erpert that this is an indiscriminate list of information; yet I'd hate to see the information lost simply because it had been in a slap dash list with a silly title.  All the red links indicate that there are a lot of overlooked women authors who aren't in a category because there's no article for them.  Mandsford 18:18, 19 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Lists of people-related deletion discussions.  -- • Gene93k (talk) 23:18, 19 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Comment Whatever is done, it would be a bad mistake to merge this with the Jane Austin article. I can't think of the relevant policy, sadly! Thincat (talk) 23:28, 19 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Rename or possibly Delete: I created the article when there wasn't the WP coverage there now is on many early women novelists, and after reading Mothers of the Novel - a pioneering, but now dated study. But I have no special attachment to it now, beyond the redlinks which I've gathered onto User:Dsp13/Redlinks. I agree with Mandsford's comments: a list of early women novelists could be useful, but I agree that it's silly to name the page by reference to Jane Austen.Dsp13 (talk) 01:53, 20 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Rename to something like List of women novelists prior to the 19th century or delete. Kaldari (talk) 02:06, 20 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Comment. There are already List of early-modern women playwrights (UK) and List of early-modern women poets (UK) for those active before 1800, so I suppose List of early-modern women novelists (UK) would fit in, though I'm not exactly crazy about those clunky titles. Clarityfiend (talk) 02:13, 20 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Rename - merger with Jane Austen makes no sense. (In the meantime, it might be worth looking through the list to remove what doesn't make chronological sense - for some reason Harriet Vaughan Cheney was on it, although she published her first work in 1820, not only post-early-modern but post-Austen!) Roscelese (talk) 03:27, 20 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Comment For the record, the article points up that we don't have pages for these women writers who were among the 100 profiled in Dale Spender's book: Elizabeth Boyd, Sophie Briscoe, Indiana Brooks, Elizabeth Byron (Strutt), Lady Mary Champion de Crespigny, Mary Charlton, Harriet Chilcot, Maria Susanna Cooper, Helen Craik, Anne Dawe, Anne Eden, E.M. Foster, Anne Fuller, Phoebe Gibbes, Mrs A. Gomershall, Susannah Minifie Gunning, Lady Mary Hamilton, Mary Ann Hanway, Jane Harvey, M. (Harley) Hugill, Maria Hunter, Susanna Keir, Sophia King, Sarah Lansdell, Mary Latter, Charlotte MacCarthy, Anna Maria Mackenzie, Jean Marishall, Eliza Matthews, Anna Meades, Margaret Minifie, Elizabeth Norman, Charlotte Palmer, Mary Elizabeth Parker, Catherine Parry, Eliza Phelp Parsons, Susanna Pearson, M. Peddle, Arabella Plantin, Elizabeth Purbeck, Jane Purbeck, Mary Anne Radcliffe, Elizabeth Ryves, Charlotte Sanders, Ann Emelinda Skinn, Eleanor Sleath, Catherine Smith, Elizabeth Isabella Spence, Sarah Emma Spencer, Augusta Amelia Stuart, Jane Timbury, Elizabeth Tomlins, Sarah Scudgell Wilkinson, Mary Julia Young, and some identified only as "Mrs. Burke", "Mrs. Carver", "Mrs. Howell", "Mrs. Johnson", "Mrs. Martin", "Miss Taylor", and "Mrs. A. Woodfin".  Perhaps some of them were not notable in their own time; libraries are filled with books by authors who don't meet Wikipedia's criteria for notability.  Some of them may not have received "significant critical attention" (WP:AUTHOR, 4c) beyond the judgment by Spender that they were "good".  However, I'd hope that the names would remain somewhere long enough that they can get that type of evaluation. Mandsford 03:39, 20 December 2010 (UTC)
 * It's possible that we do have pages on a few of them under slightly different names ("Harriet Cheney" would have shown up on your list of broken links, because the article exists as "Harriet Vaughan Cheney," while Catherine Smith is under "Catherine Smith (novelist).") Roscelese (talk) 03:51, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

 Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Spartaz Humbug! 16:46, 27 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Keep or rename to "before 1800", also adding "in English" as the current name magnificently assumes there are no other languages! Don't merge to JA - that's a useless idea. Johnbod (talk) 04:26, 20 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Delete List subjects united only by publishing before an arbitrary date. Useful as a worklist, but Dsp13 has that covered. --Danger (talk) 03:35, 26 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.

• keep in some form - agree with comments above regarding the need for better parameters - this list just helped me find an author whose name I couldn't remember. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 141.156.162.153 (talk) 05:32, 3 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Delete: quite nonsensical inclusion criteria. If necessary, preserve content by moving/substituting/merging with lists with a chronological criteria. -- Cycl o pia talk  00:07, 30 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Delete. Inclusion criteria just don't add up to make an encyclopedic list here. No objection to an article on the book it comes from, but that would probably be better written from scratch. Alzarian16 (talk) 22:59, 4 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Delete. Criteria is too arbitrary. KimChee (talk) 04:52, 5 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Delete Arbitrary list. Spatulli (talk) 17:10, 5 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Rename to List of women novelists. Lists are useful: a general list of women novelists requires no seemingly-arbitrary inclusion criteria (such as era of publication), can still populate Category:Lists of novelists & Category:Lists of women writers, and can serve as a the formation ground for future articles. &mdash; Scientizzle 20:43, 5 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Delete; the inclusion criteria are arbitrary, and in addition, this is essentially a list of English women novelists before Jane Austen, which makes even less sense. Allow for restoration as part of a list of English women novelists.  Sandstein   10:02, 6 January 2011 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.