Wikipedia:WikiProject Biography/Peer review/Sarah Trimmer

Sarah Trimmer

Sarah Trimmer is a relatively unknown writer of children's literature. Although she was extremely popular at the end of the eighteenth century and quite influential, she has unfortunately been forgotten and scholars are just now resurrecting her and her works. This article is currently GA and I am attempting to reach FA; any suggestions that would help it reach FA would be particularly appreciated - prose, organization, POV, clarity of statements and sourcing, etc. Thanks. Awadewit 06:14, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Zleitzen

Another triumph Awadewit. I tried to find faults but failed. The only question I have is shouldn't this be in British English?-- Zleitzen^(talk) 05:18, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

I thought I was holding up the British end just fine by writing all of these fine articles on British figures. Seriously, though, it is written in American English because I speak American English. Awadewit 07:22, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

Yannismarou

• "Johnson, delighted that she admired Milton enough to carry his works with her at all times, "subsequently invited her to his house and presented her with a volume of his famous periodical The Rambler." Did you forget to close here the qm, or are there just by mistake? I did not correct by myself, because I had to find something to write in this peer-review. And yea! Here it is the great flaw! Me the malevolent, I found it (hi! hi! hi!)!

• Oops. How embarrassing. Thanks for seeing that. It is now fixed. Awadewit 19:40, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

• While reading "Literary career" where you analyze her works, I thought that maybe some of these works, such as An Easy Introduction to the Knowledge of Nature and Fabulous Histories could stand as seperate articles. You could create them and then use WP:SS for Trimmer's article. Not that this is necessary; after all the article is just 45 kbs.

• It would be nice to do that but there is just so little scholarship on them. I might think about doing that at a later time when there is a little more material to draw on. I don't know about writing a whole article based on a smattering of sources. What do you think about that in terms of wikipolicy? Awadewit 19:40, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

• I don't think there is a problem with wikipolicy. They will most probably be stub articles, but this is another issue. Anyway...It is not a major issue.

• I'm not a fan of the stub article that can't be expanded. Anyway, would you mind looking at the article again? I've revised the lead and added a new section on "Charity school books" (I found another article! yeah!). If you could read those two parts, I would appreciate it. Thanks. Awadewit ^Talk 18:57, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

• I liked the lead from the first place. Of course, it does not follow a lineal chronological presentation of her life and achievements, but I do not think this is a problem. It is coherent, and well-written. I also liked the way the section you say is written. I can't propose anything else; it seems comprehensive to me. Maybe a better citing. Personally, I would cite kind-of-assertions like this one:"Trimmer was a savvy promoter of her materials; she knew that her books would not reach large numbers of poor children in charity schools if they were not funded and publicized by the SPCK.", but again my dense citing is not applauded by everybody around!--Yannismarou 18:22, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

An excellent article.--Yannismarou 12:52, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

Willow

Thank you, Awadewit, for inviting me to read such a lovely article. I made a few minor tweaks of grammar and expositions throughout, which you should feel free to revert. I think the article is excellent as is, but here are two ideas you might pause to consider:

• The final two sections, on her children and her works, are good information, but they seem to be just "hanging" there; they're true appendices, no? ;) Perhaps you could convert them into Tables, to set them into their own space? Also, what became of her children? I'm just curious. A Table might allow you to offer additional notes on her works that didn't get much "air time" in the main article.

• I will think about this, but unfortunately there is very little information available about her other works. Any comments would be my comments (perhaps original research?). As to her children, what you see is what information there is (note, I do not even have the death dates). Awadewit 18:40, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

• I think the lead could have more discussion, in broad strokes, of her perspective on the world, which is emphasized so well in the main text, e.g., how her Anglican faith and social/political conservatism colored her works. The theme of fostering the rational education of children, within those colored limits, might be good to enunciate in the lead, too?

• This is a good idea. I will work on revising the lead.

• I'm a little uneasy about the speculation of why more feminist scholars have not considered Trimmer. It's easy to see that she's not as colorful (or as historically reviled) as Mary Wollstonecraft, but a scholar's choice of a subject is probably guided by many factors, no?

• It isn't speculation; I have a citation for this. I can add it in. While it is true scholars' choices are guided by many factors, Margaret Ezell has made powerful arguments that the reason certain women writers were "rediscovered" and others were not was because they fit a particular model of modern feminism. It is a generally accepted criticism of early feminist scholarship. I will add a citation tag to remind myself to add this citation. Awadewit 18:40, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps other things will occur to me as I brood over the article further. Thank you again! :) Willow 17:26, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Automated review

• Please see automated peer review suggestions here. Thanks, Ruhrfisch 03:30, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

• None of these suggestions are really relevant. Awadewit ^Talk 04:00, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

• • The script does not recognize images in infoboxes. It does do a good job on non-linked day and year, though sometimes it finds these in ref tags and does not recognize they will be linked from there. It also does not recognize direct quotes that violate WP:MOS (if they were article text and not quotes), such as 19th and capitalization. Keep up the good work, Ruhrfisch 11:39, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
    • I realize that. Perhaps the script should not analyze blocked quotes - that would help solve the problem of "archaic" spelling and whatnot. Awadewit ^Talk 14:52, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
      • I will suggest it to AndyZ, who wrote the script (I have some other suggestions too). Ruhrfisch 02:47, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

Qp10qp

I'm reading the article and finding the notes are screwed up, with repeated note numbers not matching tag numbers numbers. I'm not quite sure what the matter is. Will copyedit and comment later, but this might need to be fixed sooner, if anyone can do it. qp10qp 16:57, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

Forget that, it seems all right again now. Perhaps it was my computer. qp10qp 17:07, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

Weird. They are fine over here. Do you find that sometimes wikipedia does inexplicable things and then fixes itself? Awadewit ^Talk 17:15, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

I like the article very much and would support it if it went to FAC. I'm particularly impressed since you say there is no biography and only partial information; but it reads as if you have selected from a larger body of facts, so that is a writing achievement. I also like that the article presents quite a complex appraisal of Trimmer in a largely lucid way: here we have an uncomplicated woman who is nonetheless a complicated figure owing to all the social and literary trends which have elapsed since her heyday and layered the ways we may perceive her life.

I usually have one or two overriding suggestions to make after reading an article, but in this case none occur to me. I did, though, have a degree of expectancy aroused after after looking up Henry Howard's portraits of Trimmer at the National Portrait Gallery (their website seems down at the moment). I don't know where they got their information from, but I expected there to be a narrative in the article somewhere about Trimmer's loss of several significant relatives, including a son, a daughter, and her husband in a short space of time, but presumably there is nothing much about that in your sources.

Here are some points—none of them major. Feel free to ignore them.

• For me, the source link in the top image's page just gave a Google search page.

I think I fixed that. There is actually a better portrait of Trimmer (you can see it at google images by typing in "Sarah Trimmer"), but I couldn't find a fair use version of it. Perhaps you would have better luck at that than I did. You seem to have some knowledge about the artist. Awadewit ^Talk 01:14, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

Ooh, not really. But I might be able to rustle some up. That really is a good painting, in my opinion. qp10qp 00:11, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

• Would it be possible to add a short note on Howard to that image page? Minor artists are very poorly done on Wikipedia, and I find the information attached to images often frustrating. I am struck by how good this little known painter (new to me) is (but what on earth is Sarah wearing round her neck?). I can have a go at this if you can't find anything: he's mentioned in my Fairy Art book, I've discovered.

I'm afraid I know nothing about Howard or the fashions in the painting. Edit away. Awadewit ^Talk 01:14, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

OK, he's on my list (after John de Critz and Robert Peake the Elder). I noticed you red-linked him, which I think is a good policy. qp10qp 00:11, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

• "Trimmer was responsible for her children's education and it was her ongoing duties as a teacher, as well as a mother, that sparked her initial interest in education."

I find this a clumsy sentence, but I'm hesitant to mess with it in case I've got the meaning wrong. I'm presuming this means duties of teaching her children rather than any professional teaching. Because one would hope that teachers were interested in education before they took up the profession; and one would hope that teaching one's own children was more than a duty.

I have revised. Awadewit ^Talk 01:14, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

Ah, that is a really good sentence, IMO. qp10qp 00:11, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

• "While proponents of Sunday schools such as Raikes and Trimmer claimed that the schools would help control the growing social unrest of the poor, critics claimed that these schools would only encourage the social upheaval they were trying to quell."

I think I know why they claimed this. But it is never articulated anywhere in the article that some might have believed educating the poor would be a mistake in case they got above themselves. I don't know what is in the accompanying reference, but it would be nice if a quote could be added to the article, preferably from a contemporary critic, articulating why the critics claimed that such schools would encourage social upheaval.

I'll look for a nice 18c quote. Awadewit ^Talk 01:14, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps one of Hannah More's pronouncements. qp10qp 00:11, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

Except Hannah More was on Trimmer's side of the debate - she ran quite a few schools herself. Awadewit ^Talk 03:36, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

Added a quote. Awadewit ^Talk 09:01, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

• The fact that charity schools had become outdated is touched on; maybe a sentence on their history would help set the context for the schools of Raikes and Trimmer.

I'm not quite sure what you mean by "outdated." Some people challenged their methods but I don't think there was a widespread revolt against the charity school system yet. I added a bit about the SPCK founding charity schools 100 years earlier. Let me know what you think I should do there. The whole history of education in Britain is enormously complicated - it's a hodgepodge. Awadewit ^Talk 01:14, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

No, this is fine. The reader has the information to distinguish the different types of schools. qp10qp 00:11, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

• We hear that Barbauld's books had a systematic structure, but in what way did Trimmer's not have a systematic structure? (The point seems to be set up as an antithesis.) "Barbauld was a dissenter and more inclined, according to Fyfe, to "encourage curiosity, observation, and reasoning."[33] In contrast, Trimmer, as a high church Anglican, depicted nature as "awe-inspiring" and as a reflection not only of God's divinity but also of his goodness.[34] These beliefs are reflected even in the structure of the text; Trimmer's aim was to convey a sense of the awe, therefore her text does not progress in an orderly fashion through a study of the natural world. Barbauld's texts, however, emphasize the slow accumulation of knowledge as well as logical thinking."

I am not totally clear here. It doesn't fully come over to me why conveying a sense of awe should lead to less order (I'm not denying that this is the case in these books, just that the dots of the explanation don't quite join up for me.) After all, religious awe is not necessarily random but may be highly hierarchical, with nature interpreted according to a set of archetypes and religious symbols, as in medieval Christianity or even in Blake. I'm presuming that Trimmer's nature walks are a series of spontaneous delights and Barbauld's an organised learning experience. But this sounds quite systematic to me: "...a book containing a kind of general survey of the works of Nature would be very useful, as a means to open the mind by gradual steps to the knowledge of the SUPREME BEING, preparatory to their reading the holy scriptures.”

Well, perhaps you could email Fyfe and ask her (I have her email address somewhere)? That is a very astute criticism of her argument. Maybe I could quote you in my dissertation "User:Qp10qp. "Personal communication on wikipedia. Peer review of Sarah Trimmer." 16 May 2007."? Seriously, though, I can't really say any more than what is in Fyfe's article (I would enter that no-man's land of "original research"). I agree with you, but I liked that her argument compared Trimmer to Barbauld (whose page I have also written) and brought out Trimmer's religion in a less fundamentalist way, so I thought I would include it. If you think it is too vague, perhaps I should take it out. The problem is, there is so little written on Trimmer at all and Fyfe's material is some of the best there is. (By the way, your assumptions regarding the texts are correct, although one could argue that Trimmer's text is structured as well, in my opinion, but I won't go into that). Awadewit ^Talk 01:14, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

No, don't take it out. Perhaps most readers will assume that if it's in quotes it must be deep. I can't talk because I use quite daft quotes at times—in the Anne article there's this one: "…saw a funambulous Frenchman play strenge and incredible practicks upon stented tackle in the Palace". This is really just a trap for my partner-in-crime user:Carcharoth, because he has a penchant for wiktionary-linking archaic words (disappointingly, he hasn't bitten yet). qp10qp 00:11, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

• I don't know if you have a date for when she stopped publishing with Johnson because of his ideas, but when I was reading some bits and pieces about his circle when pottering around one of your Wollstonecraft articles to see if Wollstonecraft attended his evenings at the same time as Blake, I got the impression that he was connected to radicals all along...certainly he supported the French Revolution before 1800. I wonder a)what happened to put Trimmer off at a particular point? or b) has a source used guesswork to give Johnson's support for the revolution as the reason for the break? "Eventually" is something of a vague word, I feel, though I expect that's attributable to your source.

I wish I knew all of that myself. If I ever get around to reading the Joseph Johnson biography, I may learn that and put it into this article. Unfortunately, nothing I have read on Trimmer says anything definite. But you are right that Johnson supported the French Revolution from the beginning. By the way, what I have read on William Blake suggests that he was not one of Johnson's inner circle but was rather considered an "artisan" or a worker-for-hire. There is a lot of dispute over this, as you can imagine, but I do keep seeing that conclusion popping up. And, yes, Wollstonecraft met Blake - he illustrated her Original Stories from Real Life. Awadewit ^Talk 01:14, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

Yes, that's where I got the idea. I was wondering (I don't know why) if Wollstonecraft socialised with Blake at Johnson's or if Blake just happened to be an illustrator employed by Johnson, who did it as a routine job. Blake's article says there's no evidence that Wollstonecraft met him, but I would find it hard to believe that they didn't meet, given all the connections. qp10qp 00:11, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

Blake was regularly hired by Johnson. I don't know if he socialized with Wollstonecraft, but I can't imagine that they didn't meet since Johnson hired him to illustrate her work. I wonder how the Blake page can claim that they never met. It is hard to prove a negative like that. Did Blake write somewhere that he never met Wollstonecraft or something? I should drop them a line. Awadewit ^Talk 03:36, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

It doesn't say they never met but that there's no evidence that they met. qp10qp 04:11, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

You can see my statement on the Blake talk page. With historical evidence, nothing is ever "for sure." What would prove they met? That they said they did? Well, someone could be lying. It is all so tricky. Also, I'm not sure why the page is all caught up in whether or not they met - it's not the most interesting thing to talk about there. But this is a whole separate issue. Awadewit ^Talk 09:01, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

qp10qp 21:30, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

• "Trimmer commissioned sets of illustrations of the Bible for which she provided the commentary."

Given the example of Jesus walking on the water, would it be apt for that illustration to be positioned close to the above sentence?

The reason it is so far down is because I have the title page for the "Introduction to Knowledge" right there already. I kept thinking about how to rearrange the page to put it closer to that paragraph, but I haven't come up with a good scheme yet. Also, I don't have any illustrations from the Guardian and that is such a long section, I thought it needed something to liven it up. Let me know your thoughts. Layout is important to me. Awadewit ^Talk 01:14, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

• "Lesson the Liturgy from the Book of Common Prayer"

Doesn't read quite right to me.

I'll look that up again. I probably copied it incorrectly. Awadewit ^Talk 01:14, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

Fixed. Awadewit ^Talk 09:01, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

• Abridgement and Abridgements: are these the same?

I'll look that up, too. I think that my source may have some typos. What a shocker. Awadewit ^Talk 01:14, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

A result of some condensed narration that went awry. Awadewit ^Talk 09:01, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

• "Worried about fiction's potentially damaging impact on young readers, Trimmer always referred to the text as Fabulous Histories, and not as The Story of the Robins; moreover, she never allowed the book to be illustrated within her lifetime."

Does the last part link to what went before? If so, from this I'm not clear how. Why would an illustration be more fictional or damaging than the text (if that's what's meant)? Does Trimmer believe that words like "story" are too fictional-sounding? Seems odd for a story writer and so may need a touch of explanation. It's actually quite intriguing.

I have tried to explain more. The potentially damaging effects of fiction was a view shared by many during the 18c - one might compare it to video games now. One often hears condemnations of video games along the lines that novels were condemned during the 18c - they lead to moral corruption, they destroy the family, they lead to violence, etc. It really is remarkable. You can take some texts from the 18c and replace "novel" with "video game" and except for slight language differences, you would never know the differences. Awadewit ^Talk 01:14, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

More on this now in the fairy tale section, too. Awadewit ^Talk 09:01, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

• "As a high-church Anglican, she was intent on protecting Christianity from evangelicalism as well as secularism."

What does "evangelicalism" mean in this context? Does it refer to the notion in general or to the specific movement(s)? And how did Trimmer protect Christianity from it?

I've revised. Awadewit ^Talk 01:14, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

Fine.qp10qp 00:11, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

• "claimed emphatically that the degree of human happiness was in direct proportion to the degree of submission of the divine Will."

I know this is a quote, but is "of" correct there? (If so, I don't understand the meaning.)

It's probably supposed to be "to," but I'll check. Awadewit ^Talk 01:14, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

• "Grenby points out that Trimmer, like Rousseau, believed children were naturally good; in this, she was arguing against centuries of tradition, particularly the tradition of original sin and the Puritanical attitudes towards raising children (exemplified by John Wesley)."

The capital P there bothers me slightly because, having been raised a Methodist (not that I still am one or ever studied its history), I never associated Wesley with Puritanism, as such. I would have said that the heyday of Puritanism was before Wesley's time. I could buy this sentence without the mention of Wesley: is it there because a source mentions him in this context?

Grenby does. By the way, Wesley was raised pretty Puritanically. I don't know if you know anything about his upbringing, but it was almost a caricature of Puritan parenting. I think his mother might even have written something on parenting. (I think Methodists now try to deny their Puritan heritage - for what reason, I do not know; but many Methodists came out of the Puritan/Dissenting tradition in England. I myself was raised Lutheran. Not that I still am one, either. Lutherans deny their Catholic heritage. It's all so complicated.) Awadewit ^Talk 01:14, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

Did Wesley have puritanical views on raising children, though, as opposed to having been raised puritanically himself? qp10qp 00:11, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

Yes. He and his brother wrote a series of hymns, some specifically for children, that support this view. This is really not a controversial statement as far as I know. Much of what I have read on Wesley and Methodism in the eighteenth-century refers to him and his movement as part of the Puritan tradition and emphasizes that it retained important aspects of that culture. I'm sure that I can track down a book somewhere that says this officially if you want me to. Awadewit ^Talk 03:36, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

No, I believe you. My knowledge of Puritanism is feeble after 1700, obviously. 04:15, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

• "However, as Ruwe points out, “by the confluence of political, historical, and pedagogical events at the turn of the century, a woman such as Trimmer was able to gain a greater visibility in the realm of public letters than was perhaps typical before or after;” "

I think this might need a little explanation. It could well be true, but from this, I don't know why.

Well, I'm afraid I don't know either. That was the concluding sentence to her article, so I used it to mine. It sounds like a conclusion, doesn't it? Unfortunately, not everything in it is explained in Ruwe's article (again, we could email her). I think that it is more of a rhetorical flourish - I thought it was a nice flourish, though.

It does seem like a particularly liberal period of history. The British regime in India was at its most enlightened during this time. Everything tightened up as the nineteenth century wore on. The writer probably assumes that this is self-evident. qp10qp 00:11, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

It was both liberal and conservative. The 1790s, for example, were some of the most radical years in British history but also had the so-called "Treason Trials" (Thomas Hardy, John Horne Tooke, John Thelwall). The government clamped down on radical thought after 1794ish and it was difficult to be liberal during that time (Anti-Jacobin Review. The early nineteenth century is often seen as a time of reaction. When William Godwin started publishing again in the early nineteenth century, he had to publish under a different name. Not until the teens does some radicalism spark up again with workers demanding rights and votes (Peterloo). This happens after the defeat of Napoleon. It is all so complicated and I don't know if it is really worth trying to summarize one of the densest and complex periods of British history. Whether it can be called liberal or conservative tends to depend on what perspective one is taking, what issue one is exploring, etc. Let me know what you think. Awadewit ^Talk 03:36, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

• I daresay you know this, but there's still a "need page" reminder at note 60.

Yes, I have to go to the rare books library to get that essay. Our main library has lost the book. I haven't wanted to bother recently. Awadewit ^Talk 01:14, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

Anyway, that's my lot: you've done Sarah proud, Awadewit. qp10qp 22:45, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

scribblingwoman

• Wonderful, rich, and useful article. Not much suggests itself to me, other than the following minor question: in the section on "An Easy Introduction to the Knowledge of Nature" (3rd par.) the argument seems to suggest that as Trimmer did not subscribe to Rousseau's ideas of gender, she was not as conservative as some have suggested. It might be more effective to compare her with some unquestionably conservative figure, or to qualify the reference to Rousseau somehow.

I'll work on that - thanks! Awadewit ^Talk 09:19, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

Added a little comparison to Gregory and Fordyce. Awadewit ^Talk 09:09, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

Congratulations on another fine article! — scribblingwoman 20:01, 16 May 2007 (UTC)