Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Stella Gibbons/archive1


 * The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was promoted by User:Ian Rose 10:01, 8 December 2013 (UTC).

Stella Gibbons

 * Nominator(s): Brianboulton (talk) 21:31, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

Stella Gibbons was a writer famous for one novel (her first), Cold Comfort Farm (1932), a delightful parody which mocks the pretensions of the then fashionable "loam and lovechild" genre of fiction associated with writers like Thomas Hardy, D.H. Lawrence and Mary Webb. She wrote much else besides, but never had a comparable success in the remaining 50 years of her career. She didn't mind; she was content with her relative anonymity, disliked and avoided the literary establishment, and made little effort in her later writing to adapt to postwar  tastes. In the early 21st century she is enjoying a modest revival, as works long out of print are being reissued, but to the reading public generally she remains indelibly associated with her one great success, and its celebrated "something nasty in the woodshed". Please comment at will (and if you haven't already, please read CCF). Brianboulton (talk) 21:31, 27 November 2013 (UTC)


 * Support I had my say at the Peer Review. Very enjoyable article.--Wehwalt (talk) 22:38, 27 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Thanks for your earlier review comments and your support here. Brianboulton (talk)


 * Image check. The lead image is a proper fair use image with an appropriate rationale; all other images have suitable Creative Commons tags.--Wehwalt (talk) 11:01, 5 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Thanks. Brianboulton (talk) 18:53, 5 December 2013 (UTC)


 * Support I also contributed at PR and think this deserves to be a featured article. I still think it would be nice to mention the sequel to CCF in the lead, since practically everyone will be coming to the page because of CCF and may not know she wrote a sequel, but that won't affect my support. Great work! -- Loeba (talk) 20:23, 28 November 2013 (UTC)
 * I have to confess that I forgot my promise in the peer review to reconsider whether the sequel should be mentioned in the lead. I've just looked at it now, and have decided you have a point, so I've insertd the mention now. Thanks for your review comments and for your generous support here. Brianboulton (talk) 23:39, 29 November 2013 (UTC)


 * Support – A third peer reviewer clocking in. First class article, well proportioned, objective, in the most inviting and readable prose, with resourcefully chosen images. Referenced widely and comprehensively. Top drawer work once again from the Boulton desk and I am envious because I wish I had written it. – Tim riley (talk) 23:45, 28 November 2013 (UTC)


 * Typically generous comments from an unfailingly helpful reviewer, spelling checker and punctuation expert. Thanks yet again. Brianboulton (talk) 23:39, 29 November 2013 (UTC)

Source review - spotchecks not done
 * FN2: page formatting
 * FN28: why include title here? Nikkimaria (talk) 15:13, 29 November 2013 (UTC)

Thank you, Nikki. Brianboulton (talk) 23:39, 29 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Support, this was an enjoyable and informative read, and as impressive as you'd expect from the nonimator.


 * Small nitpicks which can be taken or left.
 * She became a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1950 is placed at the end of the 2nd lead para. Should it end the first or open the third.
 * Probably 50:50, but having tried it out at the start of the third para, I think it's marginally better there. Brianboulton (talk) 19:47, 1 December 2013 (UTC)
 * "loam and lovechild". Red link? Googled this and got distracted.
 * Not too keen to redlink this. Unlike some genres such as "chick-lit" or "sci-fi", the term isn't particularly well known and is rather old fashioned. There might be a suitable term to pipe it to.
 * The Gibbons family originated in Ireland. - Where in Ireland out of curiosity? Gibbons is usually counties Mayo or Sligo. I had a friend Noreen Gib****....who was (I presume still is) far more attractive than that name suggests.
 * The source merely says "of Irish extraction", so no help there. Most of the Irish Gibbonses I knew had a "Fitz" in front. As to Noreen, I think "Noírín NacGiobúin" has a certain poetry in it. Brianboulton (talk) 19:47, 1 December 2013 (UTC)
 * who spent much time in South Africa  - dont like "much", maybe "long periods" or something.
 * Agreed. Brianboulton (talk) 19:47, 1 December 2013 (UTC)
 * During slack periods she practised at writing articles, stories and poems. This imples that they were never meant for publication, but did she just say that later? Sounds unlikely; I dont know many creative people that merly "practice". They may say so later of their juvenilia; I'd put in "she claimed", or such.
 * I have to follow the source, which says nothing about publication, or her intentions, merely that she practised. Brianboulton (talk)
 * masquerading as man and wife. This is tantalising and deserves a few words of social context.
 * I have changed this to "signing hotel registers as a married couple, using false names". Brianboulton (talk) 19:47, 1 December 2013 (UTC)
 * the abandonment by intellectuals of "the clerks and the suburbs" as subjects of literary interest provided an opening for writers prepared to exploit this underexplored area. - I know what is intended here, but it could be better put; are literary interest now vs writers etc.
 * I am not sure how this can be expressed differently. I understand that by "intellectuals" Carey meant writers such as Waugh, Woolf, Anthony Powell etc who based their books in the upper middle/aristocratic classes rather than among the clerks in the suburbs. I don't think the point can be made more clearly. Brianboulton (talk) 19:47, 1 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Spot checks performed on the NYC article, Adams & Beard. No issues.
 * The lead image is a fantastic capture of her character.

Ceoil (talk) 12:14, 1 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Thank you for your review and support, and also for the numerous prose tweaks you effected while going through the article most thoroughly. Most of these look fine; a few need a bit more adjustment which you can safely leave to me. Brianboulton (talk) 19:47, 1 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Fine. Ceoil (talk) 19:59, 1 December 2013 (UTC)

Support; another from the PR reporting for duty! Yet another interesting, informative and attractive article. All very enjoyable to read and review - thanks. - SchroCat (talk) 16:31, 1 December 2013 (UTC)


 * Thank you for your help and support. Brianboulton (talk) 19:47, 1 December 2013 (UTC)

Ian Rose (talk) 15:52, 7 December 2013 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.