W.S. Gilbert

W.S. Gilbert (1836-1911). Photo by Elliott & Fry, circa 1880. Courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

Sir William Schwenck Gilbert (18 November 1836 - 29 May 1911) was an English poet, playwright, librettist, and illustrator.

Life

Overview

After brief careers as a government clerk and a lawyer, Gilbert began to focus, in the 1860s, on writing light verse, including his Bab Ballads, short stories, theatre reviews and illustrations, often for Fun magazine. He also began to write burlesques and his first comic plays, developing a unique absurdist, inverted style that would later be known as his "topsy-turvy" style. He also developed a realistic method of stage direction and a reputation as a strict theatre director. In the 1870s, Gilbert wrote 40 plays and libretti, including his German Reed Entertainments, several blank-verse "fairy comedies".

Gilbert is best known for the 14 comic operas (known as the Savoy operas) produced in collaboration with the composer Sir Arthur Sullivan. The most famous of these 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. The popularity of these works was supported for over a century by year-round performances of them, in Britain and abroad, by the repertory company that they founded, the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company. 11 of the Savoy operas continue to be frequently performed by opera companies, repertory companies, schools and community theatre groups. Lines from these works have become part of the English language, such as "short, sharp shock", "What, never? Well, hardly ever!", and "Let the punishment fit the crime".Template:Refn

In 1890, after this long and profitable creative partnership, Gilbert quarrelled with Sullivan and their producer, Richard D'Oyly Carte, concerning expenses at the Savoy Theatre; the dispute is referred to as the "carpet quarrel". Gilbert won the ensuing lawsuit, but the argument caused hurt feelings among the partnership. Although Gilbert and Sullivan were persuaded to collaborate on 2 last operas, they were not as successful as the previous ones.

In later years, Gilbert wrote several plays, and a few operas with other collaborators. He retired, with his wife and ward, Nancy McIntosh, to a country estate, Grim's Dyke. He died of a heart attack while attempting to rescue a young woman to whom he was giving a swimming lesson in the lake at his home.

His creative output included over 75 plays and libretti, and numerous short stories, poems and lyrics, both comic and serious.

Gilbert's plays inspired other dramatists, including Oscar Wilde and George Bernard Shaw, and his comic operas with Sullivan inspired the later development of American musical theatre, especially influencing Broadway librettists and lyricists. According to the Cambridge History of English and American Literature, Gilbert's "lyrical facility and his mastery of metre raised the poetical quality of comic opera to a position that it had never reached before and has not reached since".

Youth and education

Gilbert was born at 17 Southampton Street, Strand, London, the house of his mother's father, Dr. Thomas Morris. He was the only son in a family of 4 children of William Gilbert (1804–1890) by his wife Atino (Morris). His 2nd christian name was the surname of his godmother. As an infant he traveled in Germany and Italy with his parents. When 2 years old he was kidnapped by brigands at Naples and ransomed for £25. In later days when visiting Naples he recognised in the Via Posilippo the scene of the occurrence.

His pet name as a child was "Bab," which he afterwards used as a pseudonym. He is said to have been a child of great beauty, and Sir David Wilkie was so attracted by his face that he asked leave to paint his picture. At the age of 7 he went to school at Boulogne. From 10 to 13 he was at the Western Grammar School, Brompton, and from 13 to 16 at the Great Ealing School, where he rose to be head boy. He spent much time in drawing, and wrote plays for performance by his schoolfellows, painting his own scenery and acting himself.

In October 1855 he entered the department of general literature and science at King's College, London. Alfred Ainger and Walter Besant were fellow students. Some of his earliest literary efforts were verses contributed to the college magazine. He remained a student during 1856-1857, intending to go to Oxford, but in 1855, when he was 19 years old, the Crimean war was at its height, and commissions in the Royal Artillery were thrown open to competitive examination. Giving up all idea of Oxford, he read for the army examination announced for Christmas 1856 ("An Autobiography" in The Theatre, 2 April 1883, p. 217). But the war came to an abrupt end, and no more officers being required, the examination was indefinitely postponed. Gilbert then graduated with a B.A. at London University in 1857, and obtained a commission in the militia in the 3rd battalion Gordon highlanders.

Early career

In 1857 he was a successful competitor in an examination for a clerkship in the education department of the privy council office, in which "ill-organised and ill-governed office" he tells us he spent 4 uncomfortable years. Coming unexpectedly in 1861 into £300, "on the happiest day of my life I sent in my resignation." He had already, on 11 October 1855, entered the Inner Temple as a student (Foster's Men at the Bar). With £100 of his capital he paid for his call to the bar, which took place on 17 November 1863 (cf. "My Maiden Brief," Cornhill, December 1863). With another £100 he obtained access to the chambers of Sir Charles James Watkin Williams, then a well-known barrister in the home circuit, and with the third £100 he furnished a set of rooms of his own in Clement's Inn; but he does not appear to have had any professional chambers or address in the 'Law List.'

He joined the northern circuit on 15 March 1866, one of his sponsors being (Sir) John Holker {MS. Circuit Records). He attended the Westminster courts, the Old Bailey, the Manchester and Liverpool assizes, the Liverpool sessions and Passage Court, but "only earned £75 in two years."

During the same period he was earning a "decent income" by contributions to current literature. Ho appeared for the first time in print in 1858, when he prepared a translation of the laughing-song from Auber's Manon Lescaut for the playbill of Alfred Mellon's promenade concerts; Mdlle. Parepa, afterwards Madame Parepa-Rosa, whom he had known from babyhood, had made a singular success there with the song in its original French. In 1861 Gilbert commenced both as author and artist, contributing an article, three-quarters of a column long with a half-page drawing on wood, for Fun, then under the editorship of Henry James Byron. A day or two later he was requested "to contribute a column of 'copy' and a half-page drawing every week" (Theatre, 1883, p. 218). He remained a regular contributor to Fun during the editorship of Byron and that of Byron's successor, Tom Hood the younger (from 1865).

There is no evidence that he studied drawing in any school, but he was an illustrator of talent. In 1865 he made 84 illustrations for his father's novel, The Magic Mirror, and in 1869 he illustrated another of his father's books, King George's Middy. His illustrations of his own Bab Ballads have much direct and quaint humour. In 1874 The Piccadilly Annual was described as "profusely illustrated by W.S. Gilbert and other artists." One of the "other artists" was John Leech.

Having already both written and drawn occasionally for Punch, Gilbert offered that periodical in 1866 his ballad called "The Yarn of the Nancy Bell," but it was refused by the editor, Mark Lemon, on the ground that it was 'too cannibalistic for his readers' tastes" (Fifty Bab Ballads, preface, 1884). Gilbert's connection with Punch thereupon ceased. "The Nancy Bell" appeared, without illustrations, in Fun on 3 March 1866. Gilbert's other work in Fun may be traced by single figure drawings signed "Bab." A series of dramatic notices commencing 15 Sept. 1866 and "Men we Meet, by the Comic Physiognomist" (2 Feb. to 18 May 1867) are thus illustrated.

The first illustrated ballad was "General John" (1 June 1867). From this date they became a regular feature of the paper. But not until 23 January 1869, in connection with "The Two Ogres," was the title "The Bab Ballads" used. They were first collected in volume form in the same year. Further "Bab Ballads" continued to appear in Fun,' at varying intervals until 1871. A collected volume of More Bab Ballads followed in 1873. The Bab Ballads established Gilbert's reputation as a whimsical humorist in verse.

At the same time Gilbert contributed articles or stories to magazines — the Cornhill (1863-18644), London Society, Tinsley's Magazine, and Temple Bar. He furnished the London correspondence to the 'Invalide Russe,' and, becoming dramatic critic to Vizetelly's Illustrated Times, interested himself in the stage. In spite of these activities Gilbert found time to continue his military duties, and became captain of his militia regiment in 1867. He retired with the rank of major in 1883.

Gilbert had in ordinary society a ready, subtle, and incisive wit. He was aggressive and combative and rarely let the discomfort of a victim deprive him and his companions of a brilliant epigram or a ready repartee. Nevertheless he had a kind heart, and was only a cynic after the manner of Thackeray. Many of the artists who worked under him bore testimony to his personal kindness. He was not interested in sport. He had a constitutional objection to taking life in any form. "I don't think I ever wittingly killed a blackbeetle," he said, and added "The time will come when the sport of the present day will be regarded very much as we regard the Spanish bull-fight or the bear-baiting of our ancestors" (William Archer, Red Conversations).

He married in 1867 Lucy Agnes, daughter of Captain Thomas Metcalf Blois Turner, Bombay engineers. His wife survived him without issue.

First plays

At the end of 1866 Gilbert commenced work as a playwright. To Thomas William Robertson, the dramatist, he owed the needful introduction. Miss Herbert, the lessee of St. James's Theatre, wanted a Christmas piece in a fortnight, and Robertson recommended Gilbert for the work, which was written in 10 days, rehearsed in a week, and produced at Christmas 1866. The piece was a burlesque on L'Elixir d'Amore, called Dulcamara; or, The little duck and the great quack. Frank Matthews made a success in the title role, and it ran for several months and was twice revived. No terms had been arranged, and when Mr. Emden, the manager, paid Gilbert the £30 that he asked, Emden advised him never again to sell so good a piece for so small a sum.

Thenceforward Gilbert was a successful playwright, at first in the lighter branches of the drama. Another burlesque on La Figlia del Reggunento, called La Vivandidre; or, True to the corps, was produced at the Queen's Theatre on 22 Jan. 1868, and in it John Lawrence Toole and Lionel Brough played. It ran for 120 nights. A third burlesque, on the Bohemian Girl, entitled The Merry Zingara; or, The tipsy gipsy and the popsy wopsy, was produced at the Royal Theatre on 21 March 1868 by Miss Patty Oliver.

On 21 December 1868 the new Gaiety Theatre was opened by John Hollingshead with a new operatic extravaganza by Gilbert called Robert the Devil, in which Nellie Farren played the leading part. Next year, at the opening of the Charing Cross (afterwards Toole's) Theatre, on 19 June 1869, the performance concluded with a musical extravaganza by Gilbert, The Pretty Druidess; or. The mother, the maid, and the mistletoe bough: A travestie of Norma. Gilbert was much attached to second titles.

German Reed and other early 1870's plays

Between 1869 and 1872 he also wrote many dramatic sketches, usually with music, for the German Reeds' "entertainments" at the Gallery of Illustration, 14 Regent Street. His musical collaborator was Frederick Clay. On 22 November 1869 they produced together Ages Ago, which was afterwards expanded into the opera Ruddigore; on 30 Jan. 1871 A Sensation Novel; and on 28 October 1872 Happy Arcadia. Arthur Cecil, Corney Grain, and Fanny Holland were the chief performers.

It was under the auspices of the German Reeds that Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan first made each other's acquaintance. Sullivan was one of the composers of music for German Reed plays, and at the Gallery of Illustration in 1871 Clay introduced Sullivan to Gilbert (Lawrence's Life of Sullivan, p. 84, and E.A. Browne's Gilbert, p. 35). They soon were at work together on a burlesque, Thespis; or, The gods grown old, which was produced at the Gaiety Theatre on 26 December 1871 (John Hollingshead's Gaiety Chronicles, 202-7). They often met at Tom Taylor's, and engaged together in amateur theatricals (Ellen Terry's Story of My Life, 1908), but for the present no further dramatic collaboration followed.

Meanwhile Gilbert was assiduously seeking fame in more serious branches of the drama. On 8 January 1870 The Princess, a respectful parody on Tennyson's poem, was produced at the Olympic with great success. This was afterwards the basis of the opera Princess Ida. John Baldvui Buckstone now commissioned Gilbert to write a blank verse fairy comedy on Madame de Genlis's story of Le Palais de la Vérité. This was produced on 19 November 1870 at the Haymarket under the title of The Palace of Truth, with Buckstone, Madge Robertson (Mrs. Kendal), and W.H. Kendal in the cast. It ran for 230 nights.

Pygmalion and Galatea, a rather artificial classical romance, was produced also at the Haymarket on 9 December 1871. It proved a remarkable success. The play was revived at the Lyceum with Miss Mary Anderson in 1884 and later in 1888, at the same theatre, with Miss Julia Neilson in the part. Gilbert is said to have made £40,000 out of this play alone (Daily Telegraph, 30 May 1911). The Wicked World, a fairy comedy, followed at the Haymarket on 4 Jan. 1873 and was not quite so successful as its forerunners.

In the meantime Gilbert wrote an extended series of comedies for Miss Marie Litton's management of the new Court Theatre in Sloane Square, London. This playhouse was opened by Miss Litton with Gilbert's Randall's Thumb on 25 January 1871; there followed during Miss Litton's tenancy Creatures of Impulse (15 April 1871); Great Expectations (28 May), an adaptation of Dickens's novel; On Guard (28 October); and The Wedding March (under the pseudonym of F. Latour Tomline) (15 November 1873).

One of Gilbert's plays written for the Court Theatre, The Happy Land, which Miss Litton produced on 17 March 1873, caused much public excitement. It was a burlesque version of Gilbert's Wicked World, designed by himself, but mainly worked out by Gilbert Arthur a Beckett. Gilbert received £700 for his share of the libretto ("W.S. Gilbert," by Kate Field, Scribner's Monthly, xviii. [1879], 754). His name did not appear on the bill, where the piece was assigned to F.L. Tomline (i.e. Gilbert) and a Beckett. The Happy Land was received with enthusiasm. But three of the actors, Walter Fisher, W.J. Hill, and Edward Righton (manager of the theatre), were made up to resemble respectively Gladstone, Robert Lowe (Lord Sherbrooke), and A.S. Ayrton, members of the liberal administration then in office. The lord chamberlain insisted on the removal of this feature of the performance.

Of more serious plays Charity, produced on 3 January 1874 at the Haymarket, was the story of a woman redeeming her one mistake in life by an after career of self-sacrifice. It was denounced as immoral by the general public, and was withdrawn after a run of 80 nights. There followed a series of successful comedies in which sentiment predominated over Gilbert's habitually cynical humour. Sweethearts was produced at the Prince of Wales's on 7 November 1874 under Mrs. Bancroft's management; Tom Cobb at the St. James's, on 24 April 1875; Broken Hearts on 17 December 1875 at the Court Theatre under (Sir) John Hare's direction.

Dan'l Druce, a play of very serious tone, and Engaged both came out at the Haymarket, on 11 September 1876 and 3 October 1877 respectively. Gretchen, a 4-act drama in verse on the Faust legend, was produced on 24 March 1879 at the Olympic. In 1884 Gilbert wrote an ambitious sketch, Comedy and Tragedy, for Miss Mary Anderson to perform at the Lyceum Theatre (26 January. 1884).

Gilbert and Sullivan

Meanwhile Gilbert acquired a more conspicuous triumph in another dramatic field. The memorable series of operas in which he and Sullivan collaborated began with Trial by Jury, which was produced at the Royalty Theatre by Madame Selina Dolaro on 25 March 1875. A sketch of an operetta under this title had appeared in Fun on 11 April 1868. The words now took a new shape, Sullivan supplied the music, and the rehearsals were completed within 3 weeks. Gilbert's libretto betrayed the whimsical humour of his early Bab Ballads, as well as the facility of his earlier extravaganzas and burlesques.

Richard D'Oyly Carte was the manager of the Royalty. In view of the piece's success Carte formed a Comedy Opera Company, and gave Gilbert and Sullivan a commission to write a larger work together. The result was The Sorcerer, which was first played at the Opera Comique on 17 November 1877, and introduced George Grossmith and Rutland Barrington to the professional stage. This opera proved the forerunner of a long series of like successes.

Peak collaborative years

The Sorcerer was followed by H.M.S. Pinafore; or, The lass that loved a sailor, under the same management on 25 May 1878. This ran for 700 nights and enjoyed an enormous popularity throughout the country. It was at once received in America with an "enthusiasm bordering upon insanity" (Kate Field in Scribner's Monthly, xviii. 754), and after its first production in America Gilbert, with SulUvan, D'Oyly Carte, and Alfred Cellier, the musical conductor, went to New York (Nov. 1879) to give it the fresh advantage of Gilbert's personal stage management and Sullivan's own orchestral interpretation.

While in New York they produced for the first time a new opera, The Pirates of Penzance; or, The slave of duty, which was brought out at the Fifth Avenue Theatre on New Year's Eve, 31 December 1879. The party returned to England in time to produce The Pirates of Penzance at the Opera Comique on 3 April 1880. This ran for a year.

Patience; or, Bunthome's bride came out at the Opera Comique on 23 April 1881, and at the height of its triumph, on 10 October 1881, it was transferred to the 'Savoy' — the new opera house built by D'Oyly Carte for the Gilbert and Sullivan operas. Patience was a satire on the current "aesthetic movement" and enjoyed great popularity.

The succeeding "Savoy operas" were Iolanthe; or, The peer and the peri (25 November 1882); Princess Ida; or, Castle Adamant, based on Gilbert's comedy The Princess (5 Jan. 1884); and The Mikado; or, The town of Titipu (14 March 1885). The last piece ran for 2 years, was played over 5000 times in America, and found favour on the Continent. It was the most popular of all Gilbert and Sullivan's joint works. It is said Gilbert, Sullivan, and Carte each made £30,000 out of it. Ruddigore; or, The witch's curse, an elaboration of the German Reed piece Ages Ago, followed on 22 January 1887; The Yeoman of the Guard; or, The merryman and his maid on 3 October 1888; and The Gondoliers; or, The king of Barataria on 7 December 1889.

End of the collaboration

The partnership was shortly afterwards interrupted. A disagreement on financial matters arose between Gilbert and Carte, and Gilbert thought that Sullivan sided with Carte. Separating for the time from both Sullivan and Carte, Gilbert wrote his next libretto, The Mountebanks, for music by Alfred Cellier. It was produced at the Lyric Theatre on 4 January 1892.

Gilbert's partnership with Sullivan and Carte was resumed in 1893, when he and Sullivan wrote Utopia Limited; or The flowers of progress. It was produced at the Savoy on 7 October 1893, but was not so popular as its predecessors, although it ran till 9 June 1894. Gilbert's next opera, His Excellency, had music by Dr. Osmond Carr (Lyric, 27 October 1894) ; it was followed by revivals of older pieces. In The Grand Duke, which came out on 7 March 1896 at the Savoy, Gilbert and Sullivan worked together for the last time.

Last years

Thenceforth Gilbert pursued his career as a playwright spasmodically and with declining success. A fanciful drama, Harlequin and the Fairy's Dilemma, was produced without much acceptance by Mr. Arthur Bourchier at the Garrick Theatre (3 May-22 July 1904). On 11 December 1909 his opera Fallen Fairies, with music by Edward German, came out at the Savoy. His final production was The Hooligan, a grim sketch of the last moments of a convicted murderer, played by Mr James Welch at the Coliseum in 1911.

Gilbert's successes as a dramatist brought him wealth, which he put to good purpose. He built and owned the Garrick Theatre in Charing Cross Road, which was opened in 1889. In 1890 he purchased from Frederick Goodall the house and estate of Grims Dyke, HarrowWeald, Middlesex. The estate covered 100 acres and the house had been built for Goodall by Norman Shaw. Gilbert added an observatory and an open-air swimming lake. He was something of an astronomer as well as a dairy farmer, bee-keeper, and horticulturist.

He was made J.P. in 1891 and D.L. for Middlesex, and devoted much time to his magisterial duties. He was a well-known member of the Beefsteak, Junior Carlton, and Royal Automobile Clubs, and was elected by the committee to the Garrick Club on 22 February 1906.

Gilbert died from heart failure brought on by over-exertion while saving a young lady from drowning in his swimming lake on 29 May 1911. His body was cremated at Colder's Green and the ashes buried at Great Stanmore church, Middlesex.

Writing

Gilbert was, perhaps, the most outstanding figure among Victorian playwrights. Few if any contemporary writers for the stage made so much money from that source alone, none acquired so wide a fame. In all his writing there is an effort after literary grace and finish which was in his early days absent from contemporary drama.

His humour consists mainly in logical topsy-turveydom in a vein so peculiar to Gilbert as to justify the bestowal on it of the epithet "Gilbertian." He himself disclaimed any knowledge of Gilbertian humour, stating that "all humour properly so called is based upon a grave and quasi-respectful treatment of the ludicrous." His satire hits current foibles with unvarying urbanity and with no Aristophanic coarseness. The success of his operas was largely due to their freedom from vulgarity and to the excellence of the lyrics, which not only were musical and perfect in form but applied mastery of meter to the expression of the most whimsical and fanciful ideas. He had little or no ear for tune, but a wonderful ear for rhythm. Gilbert's words and meter underwent no change in the process of musical setting.

In writing these operas Gilbert first wrote out the plot as though it were an anecdote, and this he expanded to the length of a magazine article with summaries of conversations. This was overhauled and corrected and cut down to a skeleton, and then broken up into scenes with entrances and exits arranged. Not until the fifth MS. was the play illustrated by actual dialogue. Sometimes a piece would after a fortnight's rest be re-written entirely afresh without reference to the first draft. In arranging the scenes, too, no trouble was too great. In H.M.S. Pinafore Gilbert went down to Portsmouth and was rowed round about the harbour and visited various ships, and finally pitched upon the quarter-deck of the Victory for his scene, which he obtained permission to sketch and model in every detail.

Gilbert believed that the playwright should dominate the theatre. He was a master of stage management. In a privately printed preface to Pygmalion and Galatea he pointed out that "the supreme importance of careful rehearsing is not sufficiently recognised in England." His experience, for which he vouched by statistics, taught him that when his pieces were carefully rehearsed they succeeded, and when they were insufficiently rehearsed they failed. A sufficient rehearsal for a play he then considered to be 3 weeks or a month. His conduct at the rehearsals of his adaptation of Ought we to visit her (a comedy in 3 acts by Messrs. Edwardes and Gilbert), produced at the Royalty on 17 January 1874, led to a quarrel with Miss Henrietta Hodson, which was renewed over the production of Pygmalion and Galatea in January 1877. Miss Hodson published A Letter in the same year complaining of Gilbert's dictatorial action, to which Gilbert replied in A Letter addressed to the Members of the Dramatic Profession.

Gilbert developed the practice of Tom Robertson, who was perhaps the first English playwright to impress his personal views at rehearsal on the actor. Gilbert rehearsed his pieces in his study by means of a model stage and figures, and every group and movement were settled in the author's mind before the stage rehearsals began. Until Gilbert took the matter in hand choruses were practically nothing more than a part of the stage setting. It was in Thespis that Gilbert began to carry out his expressed determination to get the chorus to play its proper part in the performance.

Besides the plays already mentioned, Gilbert wrote the following dramatic pieces : 'Harlequin Cock Robin and Jenny Wren, or Fortunatus, the Three Bears, the Three Wishes, and the Little Man who wooed the Little Maid,' pantomime (26 Dec. 1866) 'Allow Me to Explain,' farce, altered from the French (Prince of Wales's Theatre, 4 Nov. 1867); 'Highly Improbable,' farce (New Royalty, 5 Dec. 1867); 'No Cards' (German Reeds, 29 March 1869); 'An Old Score,' comedy-drama in three acts (Gaiety Tlieatre, 19 July 1869); 'The Gentleman in Black,' opera bouffe in two acts, music by Frederick Clay (Charing Cross Theatre, 26 May 1870); 'Our Island Home' (Gallery of Illustration, 20 June 1870); 'A Medical Man,' a comedietta (Drawing Room Plays, 1870); 'The Realms of Joy,' farce by F. Latour Tomline, i.e. Gilbert (Royalty Theatre, 18 Oct. 1873); 'Committed for Trial,' a piece of absurdity in two acts, founded on 'Le Reveillon' of H. Meilhac and L. Halevy (Globe Theatre, 24 Jan. 1874, revived at the Criterion, 12 Feb. 1877, as 'On Bail'); 'Topsy-turveydom,' extravaganza (Criterion Theatre, 21 Mar. 1873); 'King Candaules' (1875); 'Eyes and No Eyes, or the Art of Seeing,' a vaudeville, music by T. German Reed, founded on Hans Andersen's 'The Emperor's New Clothes' (St. George's Hall, 5 July 1875); 'Princess Toto,' comic opera in three acts, music by Frederick day (Strand Theatre, 2 Oct. 1876); 'The Ne'er-do-Weel,' drama (Olympic Theatre, 25 Feb. 1878); 'Foggerty's Fairy,' a fairy comedy (Criterion, 16 Dec. 1881); 'Brantinghame Hall,' drama (St. James's Theatre, 29 Nov. 1888); 'The Brigands,' opera bouffe in three acts, music by Offenbach, adapted from 'Les Brigands' of Meilhac and Halevy (Avenue Theatre, 16 Sept. 1889); 'Rosencrantz and Guildenstern,' a travesty on 'Hamlet,' in three tableaux (Vaudeville Theatre, 3 June 1891 ); 'Haste to the Wedding,' comic opera, music by George Grossmith (Criterion Theatre, 27 July 1892), a version of E. M. Labiche's 'Un Chapeau de Faille d'Italie,' played at the Court Theatre as 'The Wedding March' on 15 Nov. 1873; 'The Fortune Hunter,' drama (Theatre Royal, Birmingham, 27 Sept. 1897).

Collected editions of Gilbert's dramatic work appeared as Original Plays (4 series, 1874~1911) and Origmal Comic Operas (8 parts, containing 'Sorcerer,' 'H.M.S. Pinafore,' 'Pirates of Penzance,' 'Iolanthe,' 'Patience,' 'Princess Ida,' 'Mikado,' and 'Trial by Jury,' 1890). He also published Songs of a Savoyard, a collection of songs from the Savoy operas, illustrated by Gilbert (1890), and Foggerty's Fairy, and other tales (1890).

Critical introduction

by Harold Child

The earlier pieces of William Schwenck Gilbert were burlesques and other such trifles. In 1870 he began a second period with The Palace of Truth, a poetical fantasy, adapted from a story by Madame de Genlis and undoubtedly influenced by the fairy-work of Planche. This period included other plays in verse: The Wicked World (1873); Pygmalion and Galatea (1871); and Broken Hearts (1875). These plays and others of their kind are all founded upon a single idea, that of self-revelation by characters who are unaware of it, under the influence of some magic or some supernatural interference. The satire is shrewd, but not profound; the young author is apt to sneer, and he has by no means learned to make the best use of his curiously logical fancy.

That he occasionally degrades high and beautiful themes is not surprising. To do so had been the regular proceeding in burlesque, and the age almost expected it; but Gilbert’s is not the then usual hearty cockney vulgarity. In Pygmalion and Galatea, and, still more, in Gretchen (1879), a perversion of part of the story of Faust, the vulgarity is cynical and bitter. And, in Gilbert’s prose plays, the same spirit may be found in greater degree. He could be pleasantly sentimental, as in Sweethearts (1874), without sacrificing his cynicism altogether; but Engaged (1877), a farcical comedy, compels the reader to laugh in spite of an exceedingly low conception of human nature.

Gilbert was not at his ease in prose. He writes it pompously and with an inartistic display, which was inherited, to some extent, from his predecessors in dramatic writing. His true province was verse, and especially light verse; and, in the 3rd period of his activity, he found the perfect medium for his genius in comic opera of an original kind.

In The Bab Ballads, he had already shown his skill in metre; and, when all is said, an extraordinary skill in the writing of songs is the most remarkable feature of the comic operas which began with Trial by Jury in 1875 and ended with The Grand Duke in 1896. Gilbert was a metrical humourist of the first water. His lyrical facility and his mastery of metre raised the poetical quality of comic opera to a position that it had never reached before and has not reached since.

Moreover, the skill was used in the expression of truly humorous ideas. The base of Gilbert’s humour is a logical and wholly unpoetical use of fantasy. It carries out absurd ideas, with exact logic, from premiss to conclusion; or it takes what passes in daily life for a matter of fact or of right and shows what would happen if this were pushed to an extreme without regard to contrary influences and considerations.

The difference between the shrewd, neat satire and fine workmanship of Gilbert’s operas and the vulgar inanities of the comic opera of his early days was, unfortunately, too wide for any contact to be established. Gilbert remains alone, a brilliant and original genius, whom it is obviously hopeless to imitate, and on whose example no school could be founded.

Recognition

Gilbert was knighted by King Edward VII in 1907.

A portrait painted by Frank Holl, R.A., in 1887 is in the National Portrait Gallery. Gilbert also owned a portrait of himself by Herman Gustavo Herkomer and a bronze statuette by Andrea Lucchesi.

Publications

Frontispiece for The Bab Ballads, 1869. Illustrations by W.S. Gilbert. Courtesy Wikisource.

Poetry

• The Bab Ballads: Much sound and little sense. London: Routledge, 1869.
• More Bab Ballads: Much sound and little sense. London: Routledge, 1873.
• Fifty Bab Ballads: Much sound and little sense. London: Routledge, 1874.
• Songs of a Savoyard (illustrated by Gilbert). London: Routledge, 1890.
• Bab Ballads and Savoy Songs. Philadelphia: Henry Altemus, 1896.
• Lost Bab Ballads (edited by Townley Searle). London & New York: Putnam, 1932.
• Selected Bab Ballads. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, for Sir Allen Lane, 1955.
• Poems (edited by William Cole). New York: Crowell, 1967.

Plays

• Le Vivandiere; or, True to the corps. London: H. Montague, 1868.
• Creatures of Impulse: A musical fairy tale, in one act. London & New York: Samuel French, 1870.
• The Palace of Truth: A fairy comedy, in three acts. London: T.H. Lacy, 1871.
• The Wicked World: An entirely original fairy comedy, in three acts & one scene. London: Judd, 1873; New York: Samuel French, 1873.
• Trial by Jury. London: Walter Smith, 1875.
• Original Plays. London: Chatto & Windus, 1876; New York: Scribner & Armstrong, 1876.
  • also published as Original Plays: First series. London: Chatto & Windus, 1881.
• Engaged: An entirely original farcical comedy, in three acts. London: Samuel French, 1883. (1877)
• H.M.S. Pinafore (1878); New York: Scott, 1878; Boston: O. Ditson, 1878.
• The Pirates of Penzance; or, The slave of duty. London & New York: Chappell, 1879.
• Original Plays: Second series. London: Chatto & Windus, 1881.
• Iolanthe. 1882.
• Ages Ago: A musical legend. London: A.S. Mallett, 1883.
• Ruddygore; or, The witches' curse. London: Chappell, 1887.
• Rosencrantz and Guildenstern: A tragic episode in three tableaux. London & New York: Samuel French, 1891.
• The Mountebank. London: Chappell, 1892.
• Original Plays: Third series. London: Chatto & Windus, 1895.
• The Grand Duke; or, The statutory duel. London: Chappell, 1896.
• Original Plays: Fourth series. London: Chatto & Windus, 1911.

Plays (1920)

• The Savoy Operas: Being the complete text of the Gilbert and Sullivan operas as originally produced in the years 1875-1896. London: Macmillan, 1926.
• A Colossal Idea: An original farce (edited by Townley Searle). London & New York: Putnam, 1932.

The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan (1938)

• The Savoy Operas. (2 volumes), Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 1966.
• Uncle Baby: A comedietta (1863) London: Terence Rees, 1968.

Gilbert Before Sullivan: Six Comic Plays (1969)

• The Annotated Gilbert and Sullivan (edited by Ian Bradley). (2 volumes), Harmondsworth, UK: Penguin Books, 1982.

Short fiction

• Foggerty's Fairy, and other tales. London: Routledge, 1890.
• Lost Stories. London: Robson, 1982; London & New York: Robson / Parkwest, 1985.

Non-fiction

• "William Schwenck Gilbert: An autobiography" in The Theatre, 2 April 1883, pp. 217 seq.

Juvenile

• The Duke of Plaza Toro; from The Gondoliers (illustrated by Rosemary Wells). New York & London: Macmillan, 1969.

Collected editions

• Plays & Poems. New York: Random House, 1932.
• The Best Known Works; with the author's illustrations. New York: Grosset & Dunlap, 1932.
• Martyn Green's Treasury of Gilbert & Sullivan: The complete librettos of eleven operettas, the words and the music of one hundred and two favourite songs. London: M. Joseph, 1941.
• The Complete Annotated Gilbert and Sullivan (edited by Ian C Bradley). Oxford, UK, & New York: Oxford University Press, 1996, 2016.

Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy WorldCat.

See also

A Nightmare, by W S Gilbert

• List of British poets
• List of English-language playwrights
• List of English-language songwriters

References

•  Parry, Edward Abbott (1912). "Gilbert, William Schwenck". In Lee, Sidney. Dictionary of National Biography, 1912 supplement​. 2. London: Smith, Elder. pp. 107-112.  . Wikisource, Web, Mar. 10, 2017.

External links

Poems

• from Pygmalion and Galatea, in A Victorian Anthology, 1837-1895
• W.S. Gilbert at the Poetry Archive
• W.S. Gilbert at Poets' Corner (7 poems)
• The Bab Ballads
• W.S. Gilbert at My Poetic Side (profile & 160 poems)

Prose

• Some of Gilbert's short stories
• Gilbert's prefaces to various plays

Books

• Works by W.S. Gilbert at Project Gutenberg

Audio / video

• W.S. Gilbert public domain audiobooks from LibriVox
• W.S. Gilbert poems at YouTube

About

• Sir W.S. Gilbert in the Encyclopædia Britannica
• Sir William Schwenk Gilbert: brief biography at the Victorian Web
• The Life of W.S. Gilbert at The Gilbert and Sullivan Archive
• W.S. Gilbert at the Internet Movie Database
• Interview of Gilbert by Harry How
• True Anarchists", by Mike Leigh in The Guardian]
• This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Dictionary of National Biography, 2nd supplement​ (edited by Sidney Lee). London: Smith, Elder, 1912. Original article is at: Gilbert, William Schwenck

Etc.

• W.S. Gilbert Society Official website.