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Research dossier · Arts & Letters

Mask of Smiles

album by John Waite

Manuscripts, fine bindings, an engraving plate and preserved performance ephemera
Arts and lettersInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionAug 12, 2026
Entity authorityQ6783377 ↗
Source-derived summary

Mask of Smiles is the third solo album by British rock singer-songwriter John Waite. It was released in mid-1985. The previous year, Waite's "Missing You" was a No. 1 hit.

There were two singles released from this disc. The first, "Every Step of the Way", was a No. 25 hit on Billboard's Hot 100, aided by a music video. The other single, "Welcome to Paradise", fared less well, peaking at No. 85 Pop. The album itself peaked at No.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Mask of Smiles” is album by John Waite. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Mask, Smiles and album, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewBest approached as a cultural-object dossier: authorship and date matter, but circulation and reception often explain the wider significance. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1985—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1985. For this dossier, Mask, Smiles and album is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “album by John Waite” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

Reception evidence should be dated and situated: later canonical status may differ sharply from the work’s initial circulation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 12, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q6783377. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1985.

Critical limits

Titles can refer to several editions, objects or performances, making precise identification essential before interpretation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Separate the work, its editions or performances, and its later reception. Catalogue records, publication histories and object files often preserve different parts of that story.

Best used for
  • Identifying works and editions
  • Tracing reception history
  • Finding collection records
Verify next

The original object or edition, catalogue raisonné, performance record, rights file and holding institution.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Mask of Smiles”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Mask of Smiles primary sources, Mask of Smiles archive and Mask research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Mask of Smiles”?
  2. Which edition, object, performance or recording is being described?
  3. Where is authorship, date or provenance documented?
Subject index

Search terms from this dossier

Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Mask of Smiles” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.