Talk:Allegra Byron

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Good article Allegra Byron has been listed as one of the History good articles under the good article criteria. If you can improve it further, please do. If it no longer meets these criteria, you can delist it, or ask for a reassessment.
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Good article GA This article has been rated as GA-Class on the project's quality scale. [FAQ]
A fact from Allegra Byron appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know? column on 5 April 2008.
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[edit] Disputed

  • I don't even know where to start here! This article is huge for an individual who died when she was only 5 years old!
Four-year-old Allegra wrote her father a letter in Italian from the convent, dated September 21, 1821, asking him to visit her: "My dear Pappa. It being fair-time, I should like so much a visit from my Papa as I have many wishes to satisfy. Won't you come to please your Allegra who loves you so?" (Eisler 1999: 701)
  • FOUR YEAR OLD?? My mother babysits a girl who is four years old. She can barely write sentences, let alone comprehend words such as "satisfy". I find this information hard to believe, don't you?? Stubbleboy 00:09, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

That text is cited in two or three biographies of Byron and Allegra that I've seen. The letter still exists and a photo of it is included in the pages of the Eisler biography. I think it's fair to assume she had considerable help from the nuns at the convent to write that letter. She probably dictated to them what she wanted to say and they wrote it out for her to copy. Also keep in mind that children were taught to read and write at an earlier age in the seventeenth and eighteenth and nineteenth centuries than they are today. And we can assume that Byron's daughter might have been fairly precocious when it comes to writing. Allegra is notable mainly because of who her parents were and their story is pretty notable. --Bookworm857158367 00:25, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Cleanup and Wikify

I'm not saying that this is a bad article. It needs some work. The original author asked for my help, and I don't know even where to begin. I mean it's a very sad story, and I like the article, but how do I place the article in sections when the subject at hand was only alive for 5 years?? Stubbleboy 00:12, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

I broke it up into sections and merged some of the paragraphs as well as added a qualifier to the 4-year-old's letter. See if that works better for you. True, this child was only five but she has some significance as a romantic "symbol" relating to Byron -- one of Byron's two lost daughters. Other articles about her tend to gloss over the facts of how this kid actually spent her life and how unfair Byron was to her mother. The most recent biography of Byron laid out some of what actually happened.--Bookworm857158367 00:42, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

  • You did it! I knew you could, now doesnt it look ten times better? Great job! The references still need work, I'll help you with them. Stubbleboy 01:52, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Eternal Links

I deleted the External Links category. No need to link pictures on a page that already has a great one...er well now it does. This portrait is public domain, painting from 1817-1822. Stubbleboy 00:37, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] GA nomination

Appears to meet or exceed Good article criteria. Thanks for writing this sweet story. I made some tiny copyedits that may or may not have helped -- please feel free to revert any or all of them. Best wishes. -Susanlesch 01:03, 27 March 2007 (UTC)