# Talk:William Rose (illustrator)

This review is transcluded from Talk:William Rose (illustrator)/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.
Reviewer: Usernameunique (talk · contribs) 20:59, 2 April 2020 (UTC)

Overall

Interesting article, BLZ. It would be nice to see a standalone section about his non-poster work; other than that, the comments above are pretty minor. --Usernameunique (talk) 20:59, 2 April 2020 (UTC)
Thank you! Regarding his paperback/magazine illustrations: at some point I started trying to track down reliable attributions of these illustrations just as I had done for his posters, and I think I have those notes saved in a text file somewhere. I'll be able to take a look at it later tonight or tomorrow. —BLZ · talk 23:35, 7 April 2020 (UTC)
@Usernameunique: I've added a "List of book covers attributed to Rose" section. It follows the same principle as the posters section: as long as I could find a sufficiently reliable source attributing a book's cover to Rose, I've listed it. Some notes on sourcing:

As with his poster art, there is no definitive "master list" out there of Rose's book cover artwork, so every book was listed on a case-by-case basis.
Whenever possible I cited a traditional secondary source like a bibliography or a reliable web article.
In some cases I found attribution to Rose in a WorldCat listing, so I've directly cited those OCLC numbers. It would be needlessly cumbersome to cite them Harv-style like the other sources ("WorldCat n.d.(a)", "WorldCat n.d.(b)", and so on).
In some cases I cited a bookseller, since a listing from a professional bookseller is about as trustworthy an indicator that they have a physical copy of the book as there can be. To ensure reliability, I only cited booksellers who sell via their own website or, in one case, I cited a listing at AbeBooks by a seller listed as a "Heritage Bookseller", i.e. a seller who meets some internal standards like duration of time selling through the site, and thus is not just some random person doing a digital garage sale.
Personally, I don't have an issue with this. But I think you can be more specific, because it's clear the book seller is taking that information from the back cover. When that's the case (I saw it for another source that I clicked on, and there may be some more), I think you could cite the book itself, with the harv citation being something like {{sfn|Murray|1958|loc=back cover}}. I suspect that would also save you a headache at FAC (again, should you pursue that route). --Usernameunique (talk) 04:44, 15 April 2020 (UTC)
I'm OK doing this would be OK in cases where the scan itself provides the credit or signature, but I feel like it's a stretch if the credit is solely coming from a caption provided by the uploader. They may be relaying a credit from inside the book, but they may also be making their own identification based on art style or parroting what they read on someone else's blog. —BLZ · talk 02:54, 17 April 2020 (UTC)
Makes sense to me. --Usernameunique (talk) 05:17, 17 April 2020 (UTC)
I don't actually have access to Lyles 1983, a book called Dell Paperbacks, 1942 to Mid-1962: A Catalog-index. This is why I didn't cite to any actual page numbers and why I cited an alternate source as backup verification whenever one was available. I can't find the book available online anywhere except in a blind, search-only mode via HathiTrust Digital Library—for obvious reasons, this has limited utility. A search for the exact phrase "William Rose" pulls up 13 hits on HathiTrust, which is the same number of Dell covers I've attributed to him.
For a few of the covers, I only cite Lyles 1983. In these cases I was only able to verify Rose's authorship of a Dell book cover using an informal source like a blog or a Flickr user's scan. For example, here's a scan of The Frightened Wife, a Dell Book, with a caption that credits Rose as the author. Note that this Flickr post would be good enough to upload the cover to Wikipedia (or Commons, if it's public domain) and attribute it to Rose on the file page, but it's not good enough to cite as a reliable source for article content because of its reliance on information provided by the uploaders' caption. When I could only verify Rose's authorship of a non-Dell book through Flickr (e.g. this scan of City Limits by Nick Marino), I left it off the list. My reasoning for citing Lyles 1983 is that it's a definitive resource that could be used to disprove the attribution, and I assume that many of the informal attributions on blogs or Flickr rely on resources like Lyles's bibliography. I may try to access a library copy after quarantine is over, but even then that may take some time as it does not seem to be commonly held.
Makes sense to me, and I would definitely look for a copy once quarantine is over. Hathitrust has it scanned, and is temporarily allowing some institutions online access, so maybe that could provide a method once they get their system in place. As for Flickr, I bet you most of those attributions are coming from the back cover—something to keep in mind to look for if you can (e.g., maybe there are eBay listing that include pictures of the back cover as well). --Usernameunique (talk) 04:54, 15 April 2020 (UTC)
I couldn't find a reasonably reliable source to attribute any specific Avon cover to Rose. It's the only one missing out of the seven publishers Rose is known to have worked for. According to a scan on Flickr, Rose illustrated an Avon edition of The Four of Hearts by Ellery Queen. However, unlike with Dell books, I don't know of any offline source out there that could be used to prove or disprove Rose's authorship and, as such, I've left it off the list.
That one's signed by Rose on the front cover—right next to the fingers on the woman's left hand. --Usernameunique (talk) 04:59, 15 April 2020 (UTC)
Ah, I see that now—and based on this eBay listing, that's probably the only credit on the book itself, so unless a ridiculously comprehensive Avon/Queen bibliography turns up the cover itself seems to be the best and only source. I've added it to the list.
I've also added a list of magazine illustrations, as I stumbled across a source (Stephensen-Payne n.d.) with a partial list of these works. In one case here, I have cited a scan on Flickr; unlike the book cover scans, this scan actually shows Rose's illustration credit in the scan itself, not just in the uploader's caption. It's as if I'm citing the magazine article directly, with Flickr acting as a conduit, as I'm not relying on any aspect of the Flickr.
One last thing, regarding your comment above about the intro paragraphs in the "Career and artwork" section: the reason it is presented that way is due to the imbalance of sources discussing Rose's poster work vs. the rest of his work. If there were enough content to develop even a one-paragraph subsection dedicated to Rose's illustrations for books and magazines, I would make one. However, there is hardly any writing about that side of his work beyond mentioning that it exists, with no critical commentary at all from what I've found.
Let me know what you think. I wanted to explain all of the sourcing here because it was unusually complicated and I wanted to make it easier for you to see what I cited, and why, without having to work backwards and pick it all apart yourself. —BLZ · talk 21:22, 13 April 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for the explanations, BLZ. I think we're in reasonably good shape here, just a few lingering comments above—none of which are critical, in any event. You might also consider adding some sample magazine illustrations, by the way. Very impressive work building out those paperback/magazine listings so quickly. At some point (not now), you might think about whether they warrant a standalone article (e.g., Herbert Maryon and Works of Herbert Maryon). --Usernameunique (talk) 05:19, 15 April 2020 (UTC)
Most of his magazine work almost certainly remains under copyright, as magazine publishers were typically more systematic about renewing the copyright status of their pre-1964 work. However, I did find that his illustrations for The American Magazine and The American Weekly have become public domain, so there is now a small gallery. —BLZ · talk 22:02, 16 April 2020 (UTC)
That's a good point, BLZ, although the selection you added looks good. Any thoughts on the remaining comment above (beginning "Personally, I don't have an issue with this...")? --Usernameunique (talk) 02:18, 17 April 2020 (UTC)
BLZ, nice work on this all around. Passing now. --Usernameunique (talk) 18:01, 17 April 2020 (UTC)