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Archive 1

Quote box

Does anyone know how to make the quote box narrower? Currently, the margin is too wide on the right. Thanks. Awadewit | talk 09:04, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

I replaced the table with Template:Quote box2. If it looks too squished, one could try fiddling with the parameters. Lesgles (talk) 19:51, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

From Claire Clairmont and the Shelleys

I expect you will cover it when you come to it, but the book says (p. 36, from MSJ) 140–1, that her suicide was reported in the Cambrian newspaper for 12 October. Also (p. 36) that Godwin "later put it about that she had died of a fever following a severe cold".

Claire's response (p. 36) is fairly banal and probably not worth including, but she wrote to Byron: "Fanny (the daugher of Mary Wollstonecraft and Imlay) has died, and her death was attended by such melancholy consequences as (at least for me) can never be forgotten...I never passed such wretched hours. Everything is so miserable that I often wish myself quite dead" (brackets and ellipsis in book). She was pregnant by Byron, who had somewhat cast her aside, at the time and was to have the baby on 12 Jan 1817. She was newly living apart from Mary, who seems to have been pleased about that, so perhaps there had been some tension. One can't help wondering, in an original-researchish way, if such disarrays contributed to Fanny Imlay's worries.

Since it followed so soon and was so similar, I wonder if it is worth worth mentioning Harriet's death.

On Fanny's temperament, (p. 8): Fanny "was said by Godwin to be 'of a quiet modest unshowy disposition'." (no punctuation) Doesn't note where Godwin said that.

On p. 18, it says that when Mary first moved in with Shelley at Cavendish Square, Mrs Godwin and Fanny refused to speak to Shelley. On pp. 22–23, it says that when Claire was living with Mary and Shelley at Nelson Square and had become discontented with Shelley, the Godwins sent Fanny round to talk her into moving in with them at Skinner Street. She "duly arrived at Skinner Street on 13 November under the wing of Fanny Imlay". "Under the wing" is biographerspeak, obviously, but one does get the impression from these two references that Fanny was sharing some of the Godwins' disapproval of the Mary/Shelley relationship. One also senses that Imlay and Claire were on good terms, also because Claire wrote Fanny a friendly letter from Lynmouth, quoted on p. 25, in which she says, "After so much discontent, such violent scenes, such a turmoil of passion and hatred, you will hardly believe how enraptured I am with this dear little quiet spot". She also says something which hints at Fanny's temperament: "Now, do not be melancholy, for heaven's sake be cheerful; 'so young in life and so melancholy'." (No idea what Claire's quoting.) This implication is not original research, because Gittings and Manton say: "Knowing Fanny's depressions" before quoting that bit, making the inference that this is more than about Fanny being a bit down. Gittings and Manton say, (p. 25), that Claire "had known, it seems, what Fanny called 'the dreadful state of mind I generally labour under'." Don't know where Fanny said that.

That's about all the fragments of information I can dredge up. Forgive me if they are feeble or already known or dismissed. What a sad subject this is. qp10qp 20:05, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

  • Thanks! I am slowly adding information from Todd's new biography (just out this year!). It is always good to have confirmation on things, though. I appreciate it. Very depressing, as you say. Awadewit | talk 20:09, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

Portrait of Mary Shelley

I notice that Seymour calls the Easton miniature of Mary Shelley "posthumously executed", c. 1857. Easton's dates are given at the National Portrait Gallery as 1807-1893. qp10qp (talk) 14:55, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

Interesting - that is 1820 on the web. Todd has it as c. 1857, too. Let's go with that. She doesn't look very old in it, though. :) Awadewit | talk 01:58, 16 December 2007 (UTC)
I've just spotted that Seymour (haven't actually read this daunting whatshehadforbreakfaster yet) has a note saying that Lady Shelley commissioned Easton to copy Amelia Curran's portrait of Shelley, and that at the same time he painted twin miniatures of Shelley and Mary. Seymour thinks that the portraits were probably done in 1857, when Easton was staying at Boscombe.
Original thought alert: I expect he was copying from something provided by Lady Shelley, but I'm also convinced he was using the famous Rothwell portrait. Seymour notes that Mary has the same circlet clasping her shawl in both. More particularly, I note that Mary here looks much more like she does in the Rothwell than she does in the other portraits of her reproduced by Seymour—look how similar the hairstyles are, for example. I have the knack (it's not an art) of likenesses myself, and it's easy enough to transpose facial positions and move a face round from one position to another). On a sidenote, I find the differences between the various portraits of Mary to be disconcerting. I suspect we don't really know what she looked like when young (I refuse to believe that she was as drippy as Easton makes her look!); I'm glad about that. qp10qp (talk) 14:06, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

names & references to FI

Awadewit asked my opinion about names & references to FI on the article, so here goes. Awadwit: (I can't even decide whether to call her "Imlay", "Godwin" or "Wollstonecraft" - these names all end up referring to other people). There seems to be no good way to refer to everybody by their last names (especially since their last names shift - Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin becomes Mary Shelley, for example). I have followed Todd's biography in naming conventions, but I am not particularly happy with the result If you could offer some advice on this matter, I would greatly appreciate it.

I did a quick skim and these are my initial thoughts, which I'm setting out for discussion. I'm setting them all out (even though some of them are obvious) just to facilitate later reading / understanding of the talk archives.

  • I believe that she's best-known as "Fanny Imlay" so I'd pick that and stick to it here in the article for ease of reading.
  • Where she herself changed her name, it should be indicated; the article currently does that, for instance, in describing her childhood use of Godwin.
  • Since "Imlay" is her last name I'd stick with that, without any honorifics, per WP:MOS. Gilbert would be the main confusion and he isn't mentioned that often in the article. I would refer to him as "Gilbert Imlay" at first reference and "Gilbert" afterwards to .distinguish, and in those discussions where ambiguity can't be avoided I would go to "Fanny" to distinguish her from Gilbert and any other Imlays that come up. certai

Is this workable? Does it present other issues? Does it address all of Awadewit's concerns? --Lquilter (talk) 20:40, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

  • Is she best-known as Fanny Imlay? I thought so, but then I saw the title to Todd's biography ("Fanny Wollstonecraft") and I started to wonder.
  • She didn't change her name - Godwin changed it. Also, it wasn't "official" or anything. But, I get your point, she began to be referred to as "Fanny Godwin". When precisely this happened is unclear. When MW and WG married? When wG "adopted" (unofficially) her?
  • I have more questions. For example, how to refer to "Claire Clairmont" and "Mary Shelley". Basically, I think we should set out a chart of all of the actors in this little drama and what names are going to be used in this article. :) Awadewit | talk 20:49, 16 December 2007 (UTC)
A chart! Now that sounds like a fun afternoon on a day filled with snow & sleet. (At least here in Boston.) .... Anyway I suppose my general rule would be that where a surname is ambiguous use the full name each time someone pops up again in a discussion after a break of a paragraph or so. Then if the surname is ambiguous in that portion of the discussion use personal names in that portion of the discussion. ... The problem is that this means that "Shelley" might refer to Mary in some portions of the article, and Percy Bysshe in other portions. Claire Claremont seems like less of a problem, since Mary Jane isn't as frequently mentioned, and she can also be referred to as "Imlay's stepmother" or "Godwin's second wife" etc. But with Shelley, do we think it is more of a problem to have (a) inconsistent use of surname to refer to different people at different places in the article; or (b) sometimes awkward & redundant-sounding text? (I assume that we all agree that confusing uses is never appropriate.) --Lquilter (talk) 21:28, 16 December 2007 (UTC)
Let's try this system out, but I'm not enamored by describing Mary Jane Clairmont Godwin as "Godwin's second wife" or "Imlay's stepmother" as that reduces her to a relationship only (the wife/mother emphasis is problematic, too, as I am sure you are aware). Let's see if we can work around referring to people by their roles. Rarely do I see "husband" in this way. :) Awadewit | talk 21:34, 16 December 2007 (UTC)
Well, not in general, but just in times when it's confusing. (I too wish to avoid sexist usages; when I see wife/husband used differently I try to fix.) --Lquilter (talk) 00:01, 17 December 2007 (UTC)
I've started to change the names. See what you think. Awadewit | talk 21:43, 16 December 2007 (UTC)
It works pretty well in the adult sections, and the sections where she and her sisters are described as acting in particular ways. But it definitely feels weird when she is clearly a small child -- "the one-year-old Imlay". I'm going to think about this some more and try to look through some other bios that spend a good bit of space on childhood. --Lquilter (talk) 00:05, 17 December 2007 (UTC)
I agree - why is that? Is it just that referring to a child by its last name is strange? "The one-year-old Beethoven..." Awadewit | talk 01:28, 17 December 2007 (UTC)
Yes, it's probably some psycho/social thing. I guess the question is whether that "feel" ought to be respected as a matter of style (writing should feel so natural to the reader that they don't notice the prose), or whether it's better to have some consistency. I'll keep looking & thinking. --Lquilter (talk) 02:10, 17 December 2007 (UTC)
  • *I* had thought "Fanny Imlay" was her best-known name, but maybe that's wrong-- a quick google search shows 3270 for FI and 5000+ for FW. Hmm. Well, the point remains valid, I suppose, even if my sense of the particular name to use is wrong. --Lquilter (talk) 21:30, 16 December 2007 (UTC)
  • <Groan> For consistency, that is what I should suggest doing, but I just can't quite do it, because I've always referred to her as FI. Maybe let some other people weigh in on it? Or, maybe the differences in reference stem from some definable factor -- like American/English usage, or different names for scholarship from different fields? --Lquilter (talk) 00:00, 17 December 2007 (UTC)
Although it's true that Google gives a lot of hits for "Fanny Wollstonecraft", a large number of them arise from the title of Todd's book. On Google Books, there are overwhelmingly more hits for "Fanny Imlay", and "Fanny Godwin" comes in a strong second, though many of the latter hits may arise from Shelley's poem.
I've just read the article through, and in my opinion it would be better to call the youngsters by their first names, but Percy Shelley, William Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft by their second names. Mrs Godwin could be called simply that, or her whole name. Although there is a Wikipedia convention to call the subjects of articles by their surnames, I am sure that may be relaxed for an article like this. It is the convention in most biographies I have read to call children and some women subjects by their first names, and the books I have on Mary Shelley and Claire Clairmont do this: "...through Fanny and Mary, Godwin made his needs known..."/"Byron had shelved Claire, and her pregnancy now being in an obvious state, she became an even greater liability to Shelley" (Spark, p. 51). From time to time, both names could be used, to give the readers their bearings. qp10qp (talk) 03:38, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
The problem is that this makes women and children appear as less serious subjects. There has been a definitive move in scholarly circles to stop doing exactly this (at least with regards to women). Putting women in the same category as children when it comes to naming does not sound particularly feminist to me. :) Awadewit | talk 19:59, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
I knew you'd say that! But this is a particular case where an inflexible approach will tie the text in knots. Are there any books about these people that call both Percy Shelley and Mary Shelley, "Shelley"? It's a particular case. The Cambridge Companion gets round this by calling Mary Shelley "Mary Shelley" throughout, and that seems to me a sensible solution. A biography, though, would have to call her "Mary Godwin" at first and then "Mary Shelley". (Of course, now many women keep their original names.) Like most aspects of naming on Wikipedia, it's not straightforward. Surely children (certainly young children) should be called by their first names, as they are in real life (outside of boarding schools) and in most biographies, as far as I know. Fanny could move on to being called "Fanny Imlay" in the later part of this article, when she is older. For a little child, I find "Imlay" jarring. qp10qp (talk) 22:50, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
  • I am not aware of any Wikipedia convention to call adult subjects by their first names. I am aware of a sexist convention to do so, and WP:CSB and WP:MOS state clearly that surnames are the correct titles for use with biographical articles. Where multiple people have the same surname obviously there has to be some way of distinguishing. As we discussed above children sound a little strange being referred to by their last names, but that is not applicable to adult women.
  • In light of Qp10qp's google research I think it's fine to go with "Fanny Imlay" as the name on Wikipedia.
--Lquilter (talk) 20:10, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

I have gone with "Fanny" in the "Infancy" and the bulk of the "Childhood" sections and "Imlay" in the "Teenage" and "Death" sections (with adjustments where necessary for sense). I noticed also that the Locke and Holmes biography refer to her as "Fanny Godwin". Hm. Awadewit | talk 08:38, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

Death

Did Fanny die on 9 October or 10 October? I'm not totally sure what date to use. Awadewit | talk 08:48, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

"The night of 9–10 October"? More precision than that is impossible, I think. qp10qp (talk) 01:16, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

Look-over, as requested

  •  Done he did not take great pains with their educations. I find it hard to believe that Godwin didn't take pains over the childrens' education: after all, he and his wife were highly educated themselves and wrote books for children. And the proof of the pudding was in the eating, because Mary Shelley was able to write a remarkable novel at eighteen (and pursue a literary career, as was intended all along) and Claire Clairmont earned a living as a languages teacher and translator. There is an article by Betty Bennett in the Cambridge Companion which shows that Godwin was systematically educating the girls in letter writing: when he was in Ireland, "Along with kisses, Godwin sent his daughters assignments that closely associated reading and writing skills with letter-writing" (p. 212). And he wrote to James Marshall, "I hope you have got Fanny a proper spelling book. Have you examined her at all, and discovered what improvement she has made in her reading?" He also asked the children to follow his route home on maps. It may be true that he didn't follow Mary Wollstonecraft's system and that he has been quoted being dismissive, but it strikes me that these children were very privileged in their education, however unconventional. Seymour says: "Asked by an inquisitive lady correspondent, Mrs Fordham, whether he was using his late wife's educational system, he snapped that he and Mrs Godwin lacked time for novel methods. His answer was misleading: everything we know about his daughter's early years suggests that she was being taught in a way of which her mother would have approved" (p. 53, I have the 2000, John Murray edition). Incidentally, Seymour hints that the spelling book was a sign that Fanny Imlay was slow; on the other hand, it seems (Mrs Godwin mentioned this in a letter) that she was good at drawing.
  • According to Todd, Claire received a different education from Fanny and Mary (I tried to make this clear in the article). Claire was sent to a boarding school in Kent for three months and in Walham Green for 15 months. Mary went to a school in Ramsgate for six months - according to Todd, this was primarily for health reasons. Fanny's schooling was negligible. Todd does acknowledge that the girls were taught art and music. Todd takes the Godwin quote you refer to above seriously (63-64). I remember the spelling book incident from somewhere in Todd as well - I think she interprets it differently, though. I think she writes about how old Fanny was to be taught spelling and how this was evidence of Godwin's negligence. All I can really say is that the primary biography of Fanny Imlay interprets this evidence differently and I tried to follow the major source in this article (I have a feeling we are going to run into a lot of this.) I have yet to finish looking through all of the other biographies, but obviously I will add these other interpretations when I come across them. :) I have done this already in several sections, such as "Death". Awadewit | talk 19:40, 6 January 2008 (UTC)
Don't forget, the suggestion that Claire Clairmont was educated at the expense of Fanny Imlay and Mary Shelley derives originally from the testimony of Mary's son, through Kegan Paul. It's an important source, but not the only one, and should be balanced, surely. Seymour gives a number of details about the educational atmosphere in the household. In the Cambridge Companion on pages 28 and 29 there is similar material. It's true that the children were occasionally sent off to different schools or environments, but their main education was received at home. qp10qp (talk) 00:49, 7 January 2008 (UTC)
Interestingly, the other biographies don't discuss the education issue. Once I get Seymour, I'll see what I can do. Awadewit | talk 14:18, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
Spark just says, "Godwin took a fair amount of interest in the children's education". qp10qp (talk) 19:05, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
  •  Done Seymour is so thorough in gathering every scrap of information that a conventional view of Mrs Godwin, and to a lesser extent, of William Godwin, being problematic parents, is necessarily muddied. She certainly provides evidence of people hating Mrs Godwin, but there were others who liked her, so I'm not sure about "Godwin's friends despised Clairmont, finding her vulgar and dishonest": not all of them. One has to evaluate the sources of the vitriol a little here, I suspect (I'm trying to do my historian bit and gauge bias in the primary commentary): Charles and Mary Lamb, for example, are not the most psychologically sound people in that circle, and my first instinct is to recoil from the language they used to vilify Mrs Godwin. And one has to take into account that those who worshipped William Godwin or Mary W, such as Place or Eliza Fenwick, might have felt a natural jealousy towards Mrs Godwin; James Marshall had been living with Godwin and had to move out when Mary Clairmont moved in. Mary Shelley's own testimony may be coloured by the way the Godwins treated her after her involvement with Shelley: the evidence from the childhood time itself does not seem to me conclusive of faulty parenting at all. Seymour quotes voices in favour, as do Gittings and Manton: Burr called Mrs Godwin "a sensible, amiable woman" and "a charming lady" (Gittings and Manton, 8–9). And then there is Fanny Imlay herself: I sense a tendency in the article and in the books to imply that she was constrained or suppressed in some way by the Godwins; but she may have genuinely agreed with the position taken by the Godwins and got on with them: there is evidence for that, for example in the letter she sent telling her sister off: "'I understand from Mamma that I am your laughing stock—and the constant beacon for your { } satire'. Mrs Godwin can be blamed for being unkindly inventive, but it is revealing that Fanny believed her." (Letter of 29 May, 1816, Seymour, 152). I'm not saying that the other view is wrong, merely that it might need balancing.
  • I think we have to be careful not to distort the published sources. They may have overemphasized one element or another and that is too bad, but it is not our job to fix that. I think that it is pretty clear that they say that "Godwin's friends" despised the new Mrs. Godwin (Owen was not exactly a friend, for example). I worry about OR creeping in with these types of things and that is one of the best policies wikipedia has. You have no idea how many things I have wanted to tweak in the articles about eighteenth-century children's literature. However, there is absolutely no published material that backs me up, so I can't. The articles must go on stating things that are ridiculous or misleading. :) However, without a combination of WP:V and WP:OR, wikipedia would be the "wild west", as Kaldari once said. Awadewit | talk 19:40, 6 January 2008 (UTC)
I am not suggesting we introduce original thought by removing information but that we balance that information, in accordance with the policies you mention. "Godwin's friends despised Clairmont, finding her vulgar and dishonest" is not fully accurate, given that some of his friends did not despise her, for which there is evidence. qp10qp (talk) 00:49, 7 January 2008 (UTC)
I added a "most of Godwin's friends" for the moment, until I can find a quote from one of Godwin's friends on the other side. Awadewit | talk 04:27, 7 January 2008 (UTC)
So far, I haven't found any other quotes in favor of Mrs. Godwin than Burr and he didn't know MW - he wasn't friends with Godwin for a long period of time. Awadewit | talk 14:20, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
I think "most" is fine; that's how Spark puts it, too. qp10qp (talk) 19:05, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
I added some material from St Clair here. I think you'll like the footnote in particular. (St Clair has a pro-Mrs. Godwin quote from Thomas Robinson, by the way.) Awadewit | talk 06:46, 15 January 2008 (UTC)
  •  Done I wonder if the article could use a description of Somers Town and the Octagon, to help evoke her childhood environment. Is there a picture somewhere?
There is a picture in Todd's book, but I haven't been able to find a good copy. Scanning it from a book seems like degradation hell. Do you know how to do these things? Awadewit | talk 19:40, 6 January 2008 (UTC)
I have a scanner but can never get the pages to lie down properly. The picture in Seymour is very small. qp10qp (talk) 00:49, 7 January 2008 (UTC)
I can only find very small things on the web, so far.qp10qp (talk) 11:51, 7 January 2008 (UTC)
I managed to scan a copy from Seymour's book. See what you think. Awadewit | talk 19:39, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
  •  Done I felt the need for time and age markers in places. The lead takes us very quickly from the arrival of Mrs Godwin to Fanny Imlay being left behind. And I lost my bearings in the following: However, Gilbert Imlay tired of Wollstonecraft and domestic life[8] and broke off the relationship, but only after it had dragged on for two more painful years and Wollstonecraft had attempted suicide twice.[9] In 1796 she traveled to Scandinavia, taking the one-year-old Imlay with her, in an effort to solve some of Gilbert's business difficulties and resurrect their relationship, but to no avail. We do have markers, but they clash, and the place of the journey in the timeline of the relationship becomes blurred, in my opinion.
  • I have revised the lead. Some of this material has been removed because I felt it more applicable to MW than FI. I added some dates and ages. See what you think. Awadewit | talk 20:23, 6 January 2008 (UTC)
Yes, that's much better. qp10qp (talk) 00:49, 7 January 2008 (UTC)
  • I felt the suicide attempt by the bridge should be mentioned and placed in relation to Fanny Imlay's age at the time. Mary W's suicide attempts are mentioned in a caption but not in the main text; but in view of her daughter's fate, they might be included to advantage in the article. I felt the same about Fanny Imlay's depressiveness: the article does mention Kegan Paul's view that she inherited depressiveness from her mother (Gittings and Manton make this point too), but little more is said about the depressiveness of either, though that is surely a key to Fanny Imlay—and there are quotations that allude to this. (We do hear about loneliness and there are other hints.)
  • I was unsure whether to dwell on MW's suicides. I originally had planned to include them, but then I thought they were irrelevant to FI's life story. I have now expanded this - I basically just "stole" stuff from the Mary Wollstonecraft article. :) The reason I de-emphasized the depression is because Todd does. She doesn't focus on it until the end of Fanny's life. Awadewit | talk 20:23, 6 January 2008 (UTC)
That definitely helps. There are references to Fanny's mental state available, for example the one from Claire Clairmont's letter that I quoted in the thread up the page. qp10qp (talk) 00:49, 7 January 2008 (UTC)
  •  Done Perhaps Burr and Owen require a phrase of introduction.
Fine. qp10qp (talk) 00:49, 7 January 2008 (UTC)
  •  Done Timescale for Burr, in relation to Fanny Imlay's age, isn't clear. I cut 1803, since it seemed too early for that sort of conversation.
Fine. qp10qp (talk) 00:49, 7 January 2008 (UTC)
  •  Done In 1812, he asked if Imlay, the daughter of his hero, Mary Wollstonecraft, could join him, his new wife, and her sister. What does "join him" mean there?
Oh, I see.qp10qp (talk) 00:49, 7 January 2008 (UTC)
  •  Done she criticized Shelley's insensitivity to class divides. I'm not sure what is meant there.
I think what you just said is better. In what way did Imlay think class was significant? The cause of oppression? qp10qp (talk) 00:49, 7 January 2008 (UTC)
I don't know in what way she thought it was significant other than in a general sense, unfortunately. See added sentence. Awadewit | talk 14:24, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
  •  Done Do we know where she went in Wales?
  •  Done Godwin agreed to accept £1,200 from Shelley. We have just been told that Shelley was also in debt, so how did he manage this? Or was it just a promise?
  • Have you read yet about the nightmare that was Shelley's finances? Ah! As Shelley was an aristocrat, he could borrow against his future inheritance - up to a point. But something about his father still being alive and Shelley himself having a wife (with a possible heir) all comes into it as well. It is all very confusing. At one point he promised Godwin the money and then he gets Godwin the money - but there are long delays and hassles. Also, Godwin's name is never on the money, until later when Shelley wants to insult him.....  :( Awadewit | talk 20:23, 6 January 2008 (UTC)
The complications are clearer now. :) qp10qp (talk) 00:49, 7 January 2008 (UTC)
  •  Done By the time they tracked her to Swansea. It's not clear that this took two days.
Fine. qp10qp (talk) 00:49, 7 January 2008 (UTC)
  •  Done The article merely says that Godwin wrote that hushing-up letter to Shelley, and this is Mary Shelley. I know it is difficult to distinguish the two effectively (see comments in above thread).
Interesting. Both Seymour and Spark say it was addressed to Mary Shelley. qp10qp (talk) 00:49, 7 January 2008 (UTC)
Ah! Once I have Seymour, I will add a footnote on that. Awadewit | talk 14:25, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
  •  Done Should there be an explanation of why William Godwin and the Shelleys covered the death up? Perhaps not all readers will understand the disgrace attached to suicide in those days.
  • Good idea: Added: Because suicide was considered scandalous, disreputable, and sinful at the time, the family told various stories regarding Imlay's death in order to cover up the truth... - Do you think this is enough? Awadewit | talk 21:44, 6 January 2008 (UTC)
Fine. qp10qp (talk) 00:49, 7 January 2008 (UTC)
  •  Done Todd's theory about her seeing the Shelleys in Bath may need balancing more strongly with other versions. I don't buy it myself: we might think of the Shelleys and William Godwin as almost like characters in a novel, but I cannot believe that all three of them (or just the first two) would have kept quiet about a meeting like that. And if they were keeping quiet, Percy Shelley would not have risked being found out through the poems. Though they did not identify the body, they wrote to each other about it; so surely they would have written to someone about any last meeting with her. Seymour and Gittings/Manton have more straightforward accounts of the circumstances surrounding Fanny Imlay's death. Seymour however differs in saying that MW's sisters had just been in London and had left, after finding that some of their rents supervised by Godwin had evaporated; she suggests that they had become prejudiced against employing Fanny Imlay. But why would she then go to Swansea, the port for Dublin? Godwin says that going to Dublin was "a thing that had been in contemplation": but clearly, this hadn't been properly planned, with family packing, etc. I can't believe that she would go to Ireland without preparing properly; I suppose she was simply in a confused state and that there's a limit to what explanation is possible. I wish we knew what she meant by "those persons who have hurt their health in endeavoring to promote her welfare". I'm not aware of anything like that in her life: but the documentation on her seems decidedly puny.
  • I plan to do a bit more balancing after I manage to get the other biographies. However, since Todd's is the only biography on Fanny Imlay, I think it does deserve some emphasis as a source for this article. Again, I'm not sure it matters what we think of the evidence. That said, I think that the evidence is too scant to make any of these theories more solid than any of the others. I tried to emphasize that Shelley's poems, on which Todd relies, are scraps - they really are. They are doodlings on a scratch piece of paper. Also, it seems that all of the actors in this drama lied about a great deal throughout their lives and it is difficult to tell what happened at any point in their lives. Awadewit | talk 21:31, 6 January 2008 (UTC)
On the contrary, I think it does matter what we think about the evidence, since it is our job to alert the readers when sources disagree. Todd suggests that Fanny Imlay may have met Percy Shelley in Bath, deludedly wanting to live with him and Mary. There is no evidence for this. And it goes against what we know of the relations between Fanny and the Shelleys at that time: for example, on the 4th, she had written accusingly to Mary Shelley about gossip: "...And this you chuse to fasten upon Mamma...". She went on to insist on their sending Godwin money, "...and it is not your and Shelley's duty to consider these things?" This seems to me hardly a moment in which she would descend on Bath to live with them. As far as the lying goes, it is possible. But we would have to believe that Mary Shelley manipulated her own diary and that Claire (who was with her when the letter arrived) agreed on the cover up, or that Percy Shelley failed to tell her that he had met Fanny Imlay in Bath that day, and that Fanny had somehow arranged a meeting with him without Mary knowing. It doesn't add up, in my opinion. However, we also have St Clair's theory in the article (against which, I note that Spark agrees with Seymour that the aunt thing had stalled), and I expect this will all balance out before long. qp10qp (talk) 00:49, 7 January 2008 (UTC)
I agree that we should alert readers when important sources disagree, but I am not sure how much we should analyze the evidence. I am fully confident that you and I could come to reasonable conclusions, but is that the policy we want everyone to follow here (categorical imperative)? That is why I do not do that. Not everyone is informed enough regarding the topic they are writing about to come to reasonable conclusions regarding the evidence.
I think it is very hard to say what anyone (or Fanny) would do in Fanny's situation. The family was clearly in a crisis - Godwin's household sounds tense. It is feasible that she didn't want to live there anymore. It is also feasible that she was in love with Percy. We all know what crazy things people do for love. It also perfectly feasible that she never went to Bath, never saw them, and just committed suicide to escape it all. This is why I began the section by saying we really don't know anything. I have added more opinions from more biographies. They are not well-written yet, but that comes later. Awadewit | talk 14:36, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
I tried again to search for traces of evidence for Fanny's meeting one or more of the Shelleys in Bath, and one finds a note in both Bieri and Sunstein referring to a lost letter and an article of 1965. Sunstein states (126–27) that on October 8, Mary "had a letter from Fanny announcing that she was coming through Bath on her way to her Wollstonecraft relatives in Wales. The lovers met her briefly at the coach-stop". This brought me up short: how does she know something so precise? Her reference is to an article that I cannot access, but which you might be able to—her note reads: "Although it does not seem to be extant, Lady Shelley had Fanny Godwin's Oct. 8 letter to Mary as of Mar. 11, 1872, when she wrote Alexander Berry about it (letter in the Mitchell library, Sydney, Australia). See also Burton R. Pollin, "Fanny Godwin's Suicide Re-examined," Etudes Anglaises 18, no. 3 (July–September 1965) 258–268." The latter article, by the way, is also referenced by the amateur biographer of Shelley James Bieri, who has the same theory as Todd. (Yes, I've been on Amazon Search Inside again: it's getting like a vice!)
So that may be where the theory is seeded from: but I'm infuriated that neither Sunstein nor Bieri explains further here. (It would be nice to see what Lady Shelley wrote to Berry; it sounds like that might be in the Pollin article.) I would have expected Sunstein (or Bieri or Todd) to spell their sources out, so I am not able to tell if the Lady Shelley evidence is conclusive or flimsy. One odd thing to me is that Godwin proposed the explanation that Imlay was going to Ireland, but did so in a way that suggests he didn't know or believe that to be the case. Of course, Fanny may not have told him; and Mary and Shelley may not have told him that Fanny had told them. Or met them. qp10qp (talk) 03:29, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
I will look for the article. Awadewit | talk 14:36, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
I have read the Pollin article now (many thanks for finding and mailing it to me: I didn't expect that!). Here at last for me was a scholar trying to lay out the primary and secondary sources, assess them and reach a tentative conclusion: I recognised the technique and immediately felt at home with it. For once, I didn't feel spun, though he doesn't make much of Imlay's critical tone towards the Shelleys in her last letters. He thinks Fanny saw one or more of the Shelleys in Bath or tried to, but he does not pretend certainty (unlike Sunstein). Pollin's article confirmed my suspicion that the sources are few and that much of the speculation about Fanny by some writers is poorly grounded.
I found Pollin's article refreshing as well. I have used it as the basis for the first part of the "Death" section. See what you think of the first draft. :) Awadewit | talk 03:33, 13 January 2008 (UTC)
On the issue of analysing, I should reassure you that I'm in the same camp as you: under no circumstances must Wikipedia editors analyse in the text of the article; nor must they leave out facts or the speculations of serious scholars just because they don't like or believe them (to alert readers to different interpretations we flatly report them alongside each other). However, though I'm not one to quote policies much, it says in one of them somewhere that we should use the best sources: for me this involves analysis and evaluation out of the article space (on the talk page, or in one's head), before we choose from the vast body of work on a given topic. In choosing the best sources, we are using our judgement, and there's no way round that (but there is much to help us: scholarly journals and presses, reviews, annotated bibliographies—choosing the best books is not an idiosyncratic process but one that follows certain principles, laid down in the policies). This is not to lecture you on what you know already, but to show you that I do understand it. So, I do not just accept it when Sunstein says that Fanny briefly met the Shelleys at the coach-stop: it's my responsibility to check that out.
Oh, I agree with that completely. Which is why I quote reviews of books at people. Particularly of popular histories. :) Awadewit | talk 03:33, 13 January 2008 (UTC)
On the point of finding the best sources, have you ever seen this analysis of sources—one of the most remarkable pages on Wikipedia, in my opinion—where a published author in a field (unfortunately a rather arrogant one, but let that pass) thinks aloud as he compiles a list of what he regards as the best sources to use for a particular article. qp10qp (talk) 18:11, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
I love it! It is so entertaining! Awadewit | talk 03:33, 13 January 2008 (UTC)
By the way, on that letter from Fanny Imlay about the money, I wonder if it should be noted in the article. I daresay it is rather inconvenient for biographers wedded to the storyline of Fanny's oppression by the Godwins, but this letter shows her supporting them and, interestingly in my opinion, sharing their ideology. Godwin's philosophy was that artists and writers like him should be sponsored by those who could afford it, for the good of society. This seems alien, but he had been generous to others himself on occasion—for example, to Burr. Fanny Imlay's letter shows that she had been brought up, indoctrinated even, in the same view: she told Mary that it was "of the utmost consequence for his own and the world's sake that he [Godwin] should finish his novel and is it not your and Shelley's duty to consider these things?" (Seymour, 169)qp10qp (talk) 02:45, 7 January 2008 (UTC)
Yes, I can add that idea; Todd makes rather a big deal about it, too, and not just in that instance. Awadewit | talk 14:36, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
I added a little at the end of the "Childhood" section. Awadewit | talk 03:45, 13 January 2008 (UTC)
  •  Done Seymour has an extraordinary detail about Fanny Imlay's death. She says (p.170) that the newspaper mentioned that the young lady's stays were embroidered with the initials "MW". I wonder if she had deliberately worn those in memory of her mother, or did she usually wear them? Her few possessions also apparently included a little Swiss gold watch. This can be traced to a watch that the Shelleys had bought her in Geneva. God, this is sad. (I almost feel it is prurient to be combing over this stuff; but at the same time, I wish I could let her know that we and many others have not forgotten "that such a creature ever existed". qp10qp (talk) 22:24, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
  • Oh, yes. I have all of those details as well. Todd goes into great speculative detail about these items. I was afraid to include too much - too prurient, as you say. Do you think I should this information? (By the way, St Clair has an appendix with Godwin's diary indicating when he and MW had sex - that is really prurient.) Awadewit | talk 21:31, 6 January 2008 (UTC)
If written subtly, I think those details could be poignant. Yes, I think I saw somewhere that Godwin marked this sort of thing with an x. I'm afraid it is too much to ask biographers to leave details like that out. (On the other hand, my friend wrote a book about Tony Blair a couple of years ago, in which he left out some sad things about his daughter, I'm glad to say. I'm proud of him for that.) qp10qp (talk) 00:49, 7 January 2008 (UTC)
Added. Awadewit | talk 03:22, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

GA Review

Hi there, I have reviewed this article for GA and I am happy to say it passed without reservation as one of the best GAs I have seen in a long time. I know nothing of Fanny Imlay, but I see there has been extensive discussion of accuracy on this page and the impressive range and number of sources, coupled with the reputation of the author are enough for me to be well satisfied on this point. As I had no factual or comprehensiveness qualms, I therefore reviewed this article based on prose standard, sourcing and layout, and am happy to say that apart from a single missing space, there was no point I could see where the prose required any improvement. It was imformative, interesting and excellent and all involved are to be highly commended. Sourcing was well above GA standard, with a good range and depth of sources used and discussion of accuracy where sources did not agree. With the layout, although the use of images and quotes was very nice, the article might be improved by a) a picture of Fanny Imlay herself if one exists, and b) more sub-section headers to break up the very long passages of text. Neither of these should hold up GA, or indeed FA when it goes there (as I have no doubt it successfully will soon). Good work, congratulations to all on a very fine GA and please keep it up.--Jackyd101 (talk) 23:50, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

Just to note, at the moment, I have placed her in "Historical figures - other" as I was unsure which category she belonged in. If this is wrong then please correct it. Thankyou--Jackyd101 (talk) 23:54, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
That seems like the most appropriate category to me. Unfortunately, there are no pictures of Fanny Imlay. I will add some subsection headers as I revise towards FA. Thanks! Awadewit | talk 23:59, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

FAC checklist

Last nag

 Done I moved the following over from your talk page. It might be worth thrashing out before FAC:

  • I never did find a source for the following as a statement of fact:

Imlay begged to be allowed to stay with them because life in Godwin's house was unbearable, with the constant financial worries and Mrs. Godwin's insistent haranguing. However, Shelley refused...

This is in Todd - is note 70. Awadewit | talk 05:48, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
I found this difficult to check out because the searchable edition of Todd on Amazon is the 2007 one, and I am not sure the pagination is the same. But I am not aware of any letter in which Imlay said that life in Godwin's house, as such, was unbearable, or complained of Mrs Godwin's insistent haranguing. It seems to me that the paragraph conflates Fanny Imlay's letters to Geneva with those to Bath. Where Todd suggests (on slender evidence, in my opinion) that Fanny Imlay wanted to be invited to stay with the Shelleys, the evidence she gives, such as it is, relates to Imlay's letters to Geneva. On p 207, Todd says that Fanny Imlay was saying in her letter that only poetry made ordinary everyday life bearable (this, I presume, is where the "unbearable" comes from, though Imlay does not relate this word to the Godwins, as such, only to "life"). And on p 208, Todd says: "In this long letter to Mary and Shelley the plea for inclusion was forthright: 'I had rather live all my life with the Genevese . . .' Fanny wrote. 'I should like to visit Venice & Naples'." She had little contact with her aunt Eliza Bishop, and could not have known how closely her longing to share her sister Mary's life recalled her aunt's desire to be part of of the earlier Mary Wollstonecraft's glamorous Parisian existence." and "With her letters to her sister Mary had invited the 'ethereal part' of Fanny to travel through the 'magic of words'; Fanny was looking for a more mundane invitation". (Where Todd says, p 209, "and Mrs Godwin dripped away at her", I don't know on what evidence.)
I disagree with the article that all this means that Fanny "begged" to stay with the Shelleys. But it is clear, anyway, that her tone had changed by the time she wrote the letters to the Shelleys in Bath. By then, she is scolding them and defending the Godwins; she gives no sign that she wants to stay with them in Bath. Nor is there any evidence that Shelley refused her. I am concerned that I have never come across any quotation from a letter or any specific evidence that Fanny begged to stay with the Shelleys in Bath, or that she bewailed Mrs Godwin's harangues. In fact, she always seems dutiful in her comments about Mr and Mrs Godwin, though she doesn't pretend to be friends with the latter. What is it that Todd says to back up this point (I may be missing something)? I would say that all the primary sources are against her and most of the secondary ones (barring, perhaps, Bieri); I note that even Pollin, who supports the possibility of a meeting in Bath, does not say that Fanny was begging to stay with the Shelleys. qp10qp (talk) 14:41, 23 February 2008 (UTC)
I do not have enough pages listed there, I think. However, this sentence definitely catches the spirit of Todd's argument. For example, she writes on page 218 that Fanny and her stepmother were "not great friends" (quote from Fanny). On page 224, Todd explains how Fanny wrote all summer hinting for an invitation that did not come. At one point in the book (I don't remember where now, unfortunately), Todd compares some of these letters to Wollstonecraft's letters to Imlay - that is why I used the word "beg". I'll put these page numbers in the footnote. Tell me what you think. Awadewit | talk 17:59, 23 February 2008 (UTC)
We could also insert language here such as "Todd speculates..." as we have in other parts of the article. Awadewit | talk 18:15, 23 February 2008 (UTC)
I think her argument would need to be shown not only with an in-text attribution but with its reasoning, which is based on palpably feeble evidence, or the readers will be misled as to the known facts. Todd sees Fanny's letters to Geneva as hinting at an invite, but that would be in connection with an invite to Geneva and could not have been connected to the reason she suddenly went to Swansea from Bristol after writing the Shelleys a letter from the latter. I do not even buy that she wanted to be invited to Geneva, to be honest, since clearly neither she nor the Shelleys had the money to pay for that, and they were not in the habit of inviting her anywhere: at least they bought her a watch. I take Fanny's comment in her letter to Bath that she and Mrs Godwin were not friends to be an argument against not for the idea that she was asking for an invite so that she could escape Mrs Godwin's insistent haranguing, because if ever there was a moment to say so, that was it. In fact, she is saying, in effect, "though I am not friends with Mrs Godwin, I would not publicly criticise her"; on the contrary, she defends her "and this you would chuse to fasten upon mama". I see Fanny's character as very dutiful, correct, and proud: she is not going to throw accusations about and not going to beg (she shares this characteristic with Mary, I think). The only evidence I can think of to suggest that she wanted an invitation to Bath was Godwin's later comment that her heart was with the Shelleys rather than with him and Mrs Godwin; but this was in a letter where he was lying to cover up her suicide and so cannot be trusted (though I suppose it could be quoted to boost the article's argument). The matter is crucial, since it pertains to the reasons for her suicide, particularly as MarpleTodd ties this to the meeting she believes took place between Percy and Fanny in Bath.
For the record, I think Fanny killed herself for the reason she stated in her suicide note: that she felt she was a burden. Since she was part of the Godwins' household, she must have meant to them. This is the "done because we are too menny" reasoning, from Jude the Obscure. I am surprised Pollin never listed this as one of the possible reasons for her suicide, but Seymour prefers this expanation to the invitation/rejection theory, and would provide a good balancing cite (p 170). qp10qp (talk) 14:03, 24 February 2008 (UTC)
I have expanded the paragraph. See what you think. I am disinclined to add Seymour's "simplest and saddest" speculation because she seems to give the least weight to that explanation and I haven't seen that explanation anywhere else. Awadewit | talk 22:46, 24 February 2008 (UTC)
Well, you've seen it in Fanny's letter (and we shouldn't neglect the obvious). I have seen that explanation often on my travels through the Google Books pages, but enough of my pedantry.
Your changes have helped. I've made it clearer what is Todd's in that passage—otherwise, we'd still be left with assertions that might appear factual. qp10qp (talk) 15:08, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
Fanny's letter is already included for readers. I'm curious where you've seen that explanation in your google books travels. Since it doesn't appear prominently in these major biographies, I'm not inclined to give it much weight here. Awadewit | talk 17:01, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
Well, what major biographies? She's only had one: the others aren't about her. The sorry thing is that Mary's biographers aren't much interested in Fanny: Sunstein brushes over the matter rapidly (and, as I mentioned further up the page,) problematically; St Clair has little to say, though he thinks the aunts might have had something to do with Fanny's suicide. Only Spark and Seymour (the latter at least has an opinion on everything) look into it at all. (Spark, keeping very close to what the suicide note says, has " . . . Fanny, who, related neither to Godwin nor his wife, felt herself a burden on the household"). Even Todd used to support this view (came across this when working on the MS article). qp10qp (talk) 18:01, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

Lessons

Since there's already a good quote from the Lessons in the article, it might be too much to add any more. But what about including some of the anecdotal information they contain about Fanny? From Holmes's descriptions and quotations, they recall a time when Fanny was beginning to crawl and talk. Mary talks of Fanny "running" across the room on her hands and feet, like a dog, getting Imlay ("Papa") to play with her. In another lesson, of trundling a hoop, jumping a stick, and marching to Imlay's fiddle. Another lesson recalls Fanny making a noise and being told to be quiet by Imlay, which was a lesson learned. I like like that one particularly:

You say that you do not know how to think. Yes, you do, a little. The other day Papa was tired; he had been walking about all the morning. After dinner he fell asleep on the sofa. I did not bid you be quiet; but you thought of what Papa said to you when my head ached. This made you think that you ought not to make a noise, when Papa was resting himself. So you came to me, and said to me very softly—Pray reach me my ball, and I will go and play in the garden, till Papa wakes. You were going out, but thinking again, you came back to me on your tiptoes. Whisper—whisper! Pray Mama, call me, when Papa wakes; for I shall be afraid to open the door to see, lest I should disturb him. Away you went. Creep—creep—and shut the door as softly as I could have done myself. That was thinking.

Isn't that extraordinary! Wollstonecraft is doing something that very few adults have the insight to do, even today—ascribing advanced and complex reasoning to an inarticulate infant. I find it pretty moving, the more so considering the fate of them both. qp10qp (talk) 16:50, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Proposal to remove date-autoformatting

Dear fellow contributors

MOSNUM no longer encourages date autoformatting, having evolved over the past year or so from the mandatory to the optional after much discussion there and elsewhere of the disadvantages of the system. Related to this, MOSNUM prescribes rules for the raw formatting, irrespective of whether or not dates are autoformatted. MOSLINK and CONTEXT are consistent with this.

There are at least six disadvantages in using date-autoformatting, which I've capped here:

Disadvantages of date-autoformatting


  • (1) In-house only
  • (a) It works only for the WP "elite".
  • (b) To our readers out there, it displays all-too-common inconsistencies in raw formatting in bright-blue underlined text, yet conceals them from WPians who are logged in and have chosen preferences.
  • (c) It causes visitors to query why dates are bright-blue and underlined.
  • (2) Avoids what are merely trivial differences
  • (a) It is trivial whether the order is day–month or month–day. It is more trivial than color/colour and realise/realize, yet our consistency-within-article policy on spelling (WP:ENGVAR) has worked very well. English-speakers readily recognise both date formats; all dates after our signatures are international, and no one objects.
  • (3) Colour-clutter: the bright-blue underlining of all dates
  • (a) It dilutes the impact of high-value links.
  • (b) It makes the text slightly harder to read.
  • (c) It doesn't improve the appearance of the page.
  • (4) Typos and misunderstood coding
  • (a) There's a disappointing error-rate in keying in the auto-function; not bracketing the year, and enclosing the whole date in one set of brackets, are examples.
  • (b) Once autoformatting is removed, mixtures of US and international formats are revealed in display mode, where they are much easier for WPians to pick up than in edit mode; so is the use of the wrong format in country-related articles.
  • (c) Many WPians don't understand date-autoformatting—in particular, how if differs from ordinary linking; often it's applied simply because it's part of the furniture.
  • (5) Edit-mode clutter
  • (a) It's more work to enter an autoformatted date, and it doesn't make the edit-mode text any easier to read for subsequent editors.
  • (6) Limited application
  • (a) It's incompatible with date ranges ("January 3–9, 1998", or "3–9 January 1998", and "February–April 2006") and slashed dates ("the night of May 21/22", or "... 21/22 May").
  • (b) By policy, we avoid date autoformatting in such places as quotations; the removal of autoformatting avoids this inconsistency.

Removal has generally been met with positive responses by editors. I'm seeking feedback about this proposal to remove it from the main text (using a script) in about a week's time on a trial basis/ The original input formatting would be seen by all WPians, not just the huge number of visitors; it would be plain, unobtrusive text, which would give greater prominence to the high-value links. Tony (talk) 09:09, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

Frances

The first sentence gives her name as 'Frances "Fanny" Imlay (legally Fanny Wollstonecraft; also known as Fanny Godwin)'. I should assume that *legally* her name would be 'Frances Wollstonecraft' if she's known as 'Frances "Fanny" Imlay'. Rdr0 (talk) 21:39, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

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