Engaged, W.S. Gilbert’s most popular stage work after the comic operas he produced in collaboration with Arthur Sullivan, is a farcical comedy that has long lived in the literary shadows – although wildly neglected today, the play influenced literary names as great as George Bernard Shaw, and directly inspired Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest. Centring on a rich young man’s search for a wife and his uncle and best friend’s attempts to hinder him, the play toys with conventional notions of love and sincerity. In this edition, which also contains notes and an essay by the undisputed authority on W.S. Gilbert, Andrew Crowther, Engaged deserves to step out into the spotlight once more.
The world knows W.S. Gilbert as half of the enduringly popular duo of Gilbert and Sullivan whose comic operas with their ingenious plots and witty songs have delighted audiences. But long before this great partnership began, Gilbert was already writing inventive, humorous, romantic, and occasionally even grim short stories which have been restored to print in this first-ever collection.
Gilbert's libretti of the comic operas composed by Arthur Sullivan are hugely well known, and lines such as “let the punishment fit the crime” have entered the English lexicon – but his short stories also deserve to be rediscovered by the modern reader. This collection, carefully curated by the secretary of the W.S. Gilbert Society, brings together the best of these sharp, clever, comical tales – many of which are published here for the first time since their first appearance in ephemeral magazines – enriched with the author's own illustrations. The stories feature many of the powerful motifs so associated with his work – fairies, elixirs, magic – and a wide variety of characters – from burglars to barristers and shopkeepers to gentlemen. This volume is shot through with the observational wit which drove Gilbert and Sullivan's works to fame, and constitutes a hugely enjoyable companion for fans of the pair's theatrical oeuvre.
‘Take care. The consequences of an act are often much more numerous and important than people have any idea of.’ Today W.S. Gilbert is best known for the comic operas he produced in collaboration with Arthur Sullivan, a creative partnership that diverged over the supernatural. Unlike Sullivan, Gilbert was a great fan of fairy tales, and Foggerty’s Fairy, one of his most unjustly neglected plays, is a brilliant farcical comedy that hinges on the wish-granting of a fairy. Loosely based on his short story ‘The Story of a Twelfth Cake’, Foggerty’s Fairy considers the dangers of playing with the past. Trying to shore up his relationship, a man enlists a fairy’s help to make a few tweaks in his past – he soon realises, however, these small changes have made great waves through time, and his present becomes unbearable. 'The wildest absurdity ever perpetrated.' The Era
Sir William Schwenck Gilbert (1836-1911) was an English dramatist, librettist and illustrator best known for his fourteen comic operas produced in collaboration with the composer Sir Arthur Sullivan, of which the most famous include H.M.S. Pinafore, The Pirates of Penzance, and one of the most frequently performed works in the history of musical theatre, The Mikado. Gilbert was born in Strand, London and was educated at Boulogne, France and then at the Great Ealing School and King's College London. He wrote a variety of stories, comic rants, theatre reviews and, under the pseudonym "Bab" (his childhood nickname), illustrated poems for several comic magazines, primarily Fun. The poems, illustrated humourously by Gilbert, proved immensely popular and were reprinted in book form as The Bab Ballads (1869-73). His plays and realistic style of stage direction inspired other dramatists, including Oscar Wilde and George Bernard Shaw. Part 2 contains: Ruddigore, The Sorcerer, Thespis, Trial by Jury, Utopia, Limited, Yemen of the Guard and Patience.
Gilbert and Sullivan’s operas are some of the world’s best-loved musical works, delighting audiences with their joyous wit, topsy-turvy logic and extravagant wordplay. This glorious treasury is the definitive annotated edition of all fourteen of their operas. From the partially lost work Thespis, the first collaboration between W. S. Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan, through the triumphant comic romps The Pirates of Penzance and The Mikado, to lesser-performed gems such as the fanciful The Sorcerer and the acerbic lampoon Patience, Gilbert’s libretti are collected here in their most accurate and faithful form. There is a fascinating commentary on each work, telling the extraordinary stories behind the inspiration for the opera and its performance history, and giving plot summaries and original cast lists.
‘Take care. The consequences of an act are often much more numerous and important than people have any idea of.’ Today W.S. Gilbert is best known for the comic operas he produced in collaboration with Arthur Sullivan, a creative partnership that diverged over the supernatural. Unlike Sullivan, Gilbert was a great fan of fairy tales, and Foggerty’s Fairy, one of his most unjustly neglected plays, is a brilliant farcical comedy that hinges on the wish-granting of a fairy. Loosely based on his short story ‘The Story of a Twelfth Cake’, Foggerty’s Fairy considers the dangers of playing with the past. Trying to shore up his relationship, a man enlists a fairy’s help to make a few tweaks in his past – he soon realises, however, these small changes have made great waves through time, and his present becomes unbearable.
Sir William Schwenck Gilbert (1836-1911) was an English dramatist, librettist and illustrator best known for his fourteen comic operas produced in collaboration with the composer Sir Arthur Sullivan, of which the most famous include H. M.S. Pinafore, The Pirates of Penzance and The Mikado. These, as well as most of their other Savoy operas, continue to be performed regularly throughout the English-speaking world and beyond by opera companies, repertory companies, schools and community theatre groups. Gilbert illustrated poems for several comic magazines, primarily Fun. The poems, illustrated humourously by Gilbert, proved immensely popular and were reprinted in book form as the Bab Ballads.
Sir William Schwenck Gilbert (1836-1911) was an English dramatist, librettist and illustrator best known for his fourteen comic operas produced in collaboration with the composer Sir Arthur Sullivan, of which the most famous include H. M.S. Pinafore, The Pirates of Penzance and The Mikado. These, as well as most of their other Savoy operas, continue to be performed regularly throughout the English-speaking world and beyond by opera companies, repertory companies, schools and community theatre groups. Gilbert illustrated poems for several comic magazines, primarily Fun. The poems, illustrated humourously by Gilbert, proved immensely popular and were reprinted in book form as the Bab Ballads. Gilbert Arthur A Beckett (1837-1891) was an English writer. His pieces include numerous burlesques and pantomimes, The Libretti of Savonarola (1884) and The Canterbury Pilgrims (1884) for the music of Dr. (afterwards Sir) C. V. Stanford. The Happy Land (1873), a daring political satire and burlesque of W. S. Gilbertas The Wicked World, was written in collaboration with Gilbert, who wrote under the pseudonym F. L. Tomline. With the composer Alfred Cellier, Beckett wrote the operetta Two Foster Brothers (1877). For the last ten years of his life, he was on the regular staff of Punch. He also invented the idea for one of Punchas best cartoons, Dropping the Pilot.
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