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The Fox and the Hound (novel)

The Fox and the Hound (novel) (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

Nominator(s): -- Collectonian (talk · contribs) 19:29, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

• Featured article candidates/The Fox and the Hound (novel)/archive1

I am nominating this for featured article because I feel it meets all of the current featured article criteria. It is currently a good article and it has been through a pre-FAC peer review, during which all issues noted were corrected. The article is as comprehensive as it can be, and well-researched, after months of exhaustive searching through contemporary periodicals and books to find all findable reviews within technological limits, including contacting local libraries directly for copies of articles not obtainable by usual university request methods. As this particular work has been long out of print, and is one of the rare works adapted by Disney to not see a revival, there is little retrospective material to use for enhancing the article, but all that was found was included. The citation style is consistent and of a valid styling (using citation templates), and every snippet of information is sourced to a reliable, quality source. Per the toolbox at the time of this submission, it has no disambiguation links, no broken links, and the one cover has valid ALT text. -- Collectonian (talk · contribs) 19:29, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

Note: This is a WikiCup nomination. To the nominator: if you do not intend to submit this article at the WikiCup, feel free to remove this notice. Ucucha 22:10, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

Comment

Is it Copper or Cooper? I see both being used fairly frequently throughout the article. MelicansMatkin (talk, contributions) 20:33, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

Copper...fixed the other two instances. -- Collectonian (talk · contribs) 20:36, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

• Comments: I've actually read this book! Randomly came across a copy in my library, so imagine my surprise that it's not the happy-go-lucky tale from my childhood. ("But but but... they were friends!") I understand the lack of varying sources, and don't see an issue with that as of yet. Quickly skimming through, however, I found a few typos, which is usually a red flag. I'd like to see either a copy-edit or at least a detailed run-through by a non-involved editor, in addition to the work that's already been done in the PR. Formatting and such looks great, though. I look forward to reading it in more detail soon. María (habla conmigo) 20:46, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

I had a similar reaction the first time I read it. It makes me wonder how Disney came up with their version beyond "look, there is a fox and there is a hound" :-P -- Collectonian (talk · contribs) 23:56, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

• Comments. No dab links, no dead external links, alt text present and good. Ucucha 22:12, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

• Comment. Hi Collectonian, this is a nice article. Do you know who the first publisher was, before it won the award? Also wondering about this sentence: "He uses traps and poison to try to kill as many as possible, but the poison kills other animals too, and is removed after a human child accidentally eats it." I tried to copy edit it, but found I didn't really understand it. It was removed from the traps, perhaps, or were the traps removed too? What happened to the child? SlimVirgin 01:45, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

As far as the sources indicate, no one published it before, it won the award through some kind of contest or submission. But I could not find any full details on how that worked. The Master set traps and poison to try to kill the rabid foxes. A child ate some of the poison and the way it is written it sounds like the child died, so all the poison was removed. The traps remained. -- Collectonian (talk · contribs) 03:15, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Could you make those points clearer? That is, that the book hadn't been published before, and that the child died, or whatever the book says. The publishing history is particularly important. SlimVirgin 05:13, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

clarifications added. -- Collectonian (talk · contribs) 17:53, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. I'm still a little unclear about the publishing history—it's a small point but it's the kind of detail that jumps out. The impression given is that it was entirely unpublished when Dutton gave it the award, which begs the question as to how they knew about it. So was this a competition specifically for unpublished manuscripts? Send your animal manuscript to us, and if you win, we'll publish it and give you $10,000? SlimVirgin 10:21, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

As best I can find, that seems to be it, however I could find nothing that stated for sure one way or another how they learned about it. If it submitted it to them, or if it was a contest. All I could find was that he was a winner and that they published it as a result, and no mention of it ever being published before. I'll see if I can find some general sources on the award itself that may help clarify. -- Collectonian (talk · contribs) 16:00, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

It seems it's an international literary award for unpublished manuscripts, established in 1962. I found a source here, which I hope you can see. It would be worth adding that to the article to clarify. SlimVirgin 16:15, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Awesome. I've added the clarification and I've requested a copy of the original from my library to clarify/clean up the citations. -- Collectonian (talk · contribs) 16:32, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Excellent, looks good. SlimVirgin 16:48, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

• Comments - sources look okay, links checked out with the link checker tool. Ealdgyth - Talk 17:36, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

• I'd like to see more about the book's reception—any reviews or analysis—assuming they exist. Do you think there might be any more in-depth reviews somewhere? I found something that might be interesting to add—a book that says Mannix used to hunt with a man called Bee Dee Adkins, whose favourite hunting dog was Copper, and this was the dog the book is based on. I don't know how reliable a source this is though. I hope you can see it here, p. 65, there's a photograph of Copper. SlimVirgin 20:01, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

By the way, I just want to make clear that if I add anything to the article, please feel free to revert, change it, fix it, whatever. No hard feelings. :) SlimVirgin 20:02, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

There really is very little available from what I can find. Because of the age and its out of print status, it was difficult to find even as much as I did. Being popular at the time, I suspect more may have been written, but where I do not know. I did use that source in the article to source his basing it on the people in the valley :-) I missed the note on the first picture and added it. -- Collectonian (talk · contribs) 20:31, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

There's a discussion here about Bee Adkins that mentions Mannix. Adkins's grandson is on the discussion board, using the name drkeeling. He says his name is Duane. There are also a couple of photographs of Copper. I was thinking it might be nice to get an image of Copper released for use in the article. The grandson's email address at that time was drkeeling40 at yahoo dot com, in case you want to ask him. Don't feel you have to though; it's just a thought. He might even know of any old book reviews for Mannix's book. SlimVirgin 21:05, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Dude...you rock :-) Will send him a note. -- Collectonian (talk · contribs) 21:18, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

• Commentary moved to talk; USSMinnesota may continue discussion on talk. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:58, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

Media review: One image. Alt text good.

• File:The Fox and the Hound 1967 novel cover.jpg: First edition book cover (fair use), used as main infobox image.

• Usage: Good, standard.
• Rationale: Good.—DCGeist (talk) 15:15, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Prose comments

• "Book-of-the-Month club selection"—are the hyphens necessary? If you feel something is required, perhaps italics?
• "of the time" is redundant.
• "was released theatrically in summer 1981"—they had circus clowns outside the cinemas? And this was in ... January 1981? (Summer)
• Plot: clash of past/present tenses in the first sentence.
• "various" could probably go.
• "then waits to jump to safety until the last minute"—word order needs fixing.
• "he kills the pups, then by using"—semicolon better.
• "though ... though".
• Does "nursing home" need a link?
• "Mannix felt it nearly impossible for any writer to escape imparting some anthropomorphism in such a novel"—possibly add "was" and remove "imparting some".
• Remove commas after "hound" and "ability"? Tony (talk) 01:07, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

The hyphens were in the sources, but can remove if it not necessary. Rest fixed (non-American readers may not know what a nursing home is). Can remove if it is considered a common term. -- Collectonian (talk · contribs) 01:57, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

Support

I read for prose, readability, content, and clarity (not images) but looked at the sources for general overview. There were a few problems on the prose, but really minor ones that I took the liberty of tweaking, so please feel free to "untweak" if I've screwed up. Tony's comments above should also be dealt with if they aren't. This is very nicely done, and a difficult one to do. Everyone thinks they know this, because of the Disney movie, but... There is some confusion in the paragraph about Bluth, which I think I fixed, but you should check it. Auntieruth55 (talk) 02:12, 10 March 2010 (UTC)