The author of The Pirates of Penzance, The Mikado, HMS Pinafore and the other great Savoy libretti, W S Gilbert, witty, caustic and disrespectful, was one of the celebrities of the late Victorian age. In his time he had been many things: journalist, theatre critic, cartoonist, comic poet, stage director, writer of short stories, dramatist. A political satire he wrote was banned by the Lord Chamberlain at the personal insistence of the Prince of Wales. He wrote the most brilliantly inventive plays of his time. With Arthur Sullivan he wrote comic operas that defined the age. He became richer and more famous than he could have imagined, but at the price of his artistic freedom. This is the story of an angry and quarrelsome man, discontented with himself and the age he lived in, raging at life's absurdities and laughing at them. In this book his glorious, contradictory character is explored and brought vividly to life.

A weekly review of politics, literature, theology, and art.

Sir William Schwenk Gilbert and Sir Arthur Sullivan created fourteen comic operas - witty satires set to sparkling music - that instantly won a large and enthusiastic audience and remain immensely popular today. Their talents brought the two men together and their temperaments finally drove them apart. Here, in forty interviews and recollections, is a record of what was said about them during and shortly after their lifetimes by friends, musicians, theatrical managers, singers, actors, and actresses, journalists and authors. For Gilbert and Sullivan devotees everywhere, this entertaining collection will provide fresh insights into the careers and collaborative achievements of one of the most successful - and enduring - enterprises of Victorian theatre.