Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Longfellows poetical works

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

The result was delete. -- Cirt (talk) 20:02, 4 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Longfellows poetical works[edit]

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This article is about an 1883 edition of a collection of the American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's poetry. No notablity of this edition has been established, most of the article is based on the description provided in the book itself, and the only third party reference was published over 100 years ago. TFD (talk) 04:50, 20 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Keep The notability is in the fact that this was the first compilation of all of Longfellows works gathered into one volume. The book itself is now a collectible, often selling for many hundreds of pounds at auction. The commissioned artworks in the book are also of note, given one is Sir John Gilbert. Also any book which is still in print over one hundred years after publication is notable. Tentontunic (talk) 09:52, 20 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It is also the only official compilation of his works. [1] Tentontunic (talk) 14:53, 20 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Redirect to Longfellow biography. Calling it the only "official" compilation of his works is inaccurate; his first collected works came out in the 1840s. This is also a British edition and his only authorized publisher was the American company Houghton Mifflin (formerly Ticknor and Fields). Considering the lack of international copyright upon Longfellow's death, and the notoriously rampant piracy by British publishers at that time, we would need an unbiased third-party source to confirm the claim (currently connected only to what might be a clever marketing technique). Until then, this is a posthumous anthology and, as there are dozens of them, I fail to see how this one is more notable than all the others. I'll also point out that the article title is incorrect and needs an apostrophe and proper capitalization. --Midnightdreary (talk) 16:15, 20 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

This source [2] says, "London: George Routledge & Sons Ltd, 1883. 964pp inc illustrations (including tissue-guarded frontis from Evangeline and vignette to title page of Longfellow's home) - This is the "Author's Copyright Edition" of the bard's poetry. This volume includes "83 illustrations by Sir John Gilbert, R. A., and other [unnamed] artists". It also includes "not only every poem printed in any other edition issued in England, but 86 copyright poems which can only be found" in this volume." Is this a secondary source to support the first that this was the only official compilation? Tentontunic (talk) 16:52, 20 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

No. Find a Longfellow scholar, biographer, historian, etc. This source looks like it's just echoing the marketing. --Midnightdreary (talk) 17:24, 20 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Poetry-related deletion discussions. -- • Gene93k (talk) 18:29, 20 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 11:36, 27 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Delete. Nothing distinctive about this particular collection, as every well-known poet will have one or more such collections published at some point. I'm unconvinced that the sources cited in the article (two of which are this book itself) or the bookseller's description cited above constitute multiple, independent, substantive sources that would satisfy the GNG. Deor (talk) 04:07, 2 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

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