Sir William Schwenck Gilbert was an English dramatist, librettist, poet and illustrator best known for his collaboration with composer Arthur Sullivan, which produced fourteen comic operas. 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 Gilbert, Sullivan and their producer Richard D'Oyly Carte founded, the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company. These Savoy operas continue to be frequently performed in the English-speaking world and beyond.Gilbert's creative output included over 75 plays and libretti, and numerous short stories, poems and lyrics, both comic and serious. 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", some serious plays, and his first five collaborations with Sullivan: Thespis, Trial by Jury, The Sorcerer, H.M.S. Pinafore and The Pirates of Penzance. In the 1880s, Gilbert focused on the Savoy operas, including Patience, Iolanthe, The Mikado, The Yeomen of the Guard and The Gondoliers.
In 1890, after this long and profitable creative partnership, Gilbert quarrelled with Sullivan and 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 two 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 Lucy, and their ward, Nancy McIntosh, to a country estate, Grim's Dyke. He was knighted in 1907. Gilbert 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.
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".
Wikipedia
“Is life a boon?
If so it must befall
That death when e're he call
Must call too soon.”
The Yeomen of the Guard (1888)
The disagreeable Man (from Princess Ida).
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)
“So I fell in love with a rich attorney's Elderly, ugly daughter.”
Trial by Jury (1875)
Source: 1875, also quoted in Dictionary of Quotations, p. 353 (2005)
The tangled Skein.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)
It rolls on.
To the Terrestrial Globe.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)
Ruddigore (1887)
The first Lord's Song.
H.M.S. Pinafore (1878)
Mr Wells' song, Act I.
"Simmery Axe" is the traditional pronunciation of "St. Mary Axe", a road in the City of London.
In Gilbert's day, the last building was number 68, though number 70 was built later.
The Sorcerer (1877)
Captain Reese.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)
The Suicide's Grave (from The Mikado).
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)
The Yarn of the "Nancy Bell". Compare: There were three sailors of Bristol city
Who took a boat and went to sea.
But first with beef and captain's biscuits
And pickled pork they loaded she.
There was gorging Jack and guzzling Jimmy,
And the youngest he was little Billee.
Now when they got as far as the Equator
They'd nothing left but one split pea.
W. M. Thackeray: Little Billee.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)
The Lord Chancellor's Song (from Iolanthe).
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)
Variant: The Law is the true embodiment
Of everything that's excellent.
It has no kind of fault or flaw,
And I, my Lords, embody the Law.
The Mikado (1885)
The Gondoliers (1889)
The Mikado (1885)
Final chorus, concluding lines.
Utopia Limited (1893)
The first Lord's Song (from HMS Pinafore).
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)
"Unappreciated Shakespeare", Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News, Christmas Number, 9 December 1882.
“I've jibe and joke,
And quip and crank,
For lowly folk
And men of rank.”
The Yeomen of the Guard (1888)
Final chorus.
Utopia Limited (1893)
“Ah, take one consideration with another
A policeman's lot is not a happy one!”
The Policeman's Lot (from The Pirates of Penzance).
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)
Act I
Patience (1881)
The Englishman (from HMS Pinafore).
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)
“Roll on, thou ball, roll on
Through pathless realms of space,
Roll on!”
To the Terrestrial Globe.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)
With a shake of his poor little head he replied,
"Oh, Willow, titwillow, titwillow!"
The Suicide's Grave (from The Mikado).
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)
“In spite of all temptations
To belong to other nations,
He remains an Englishman!”
H.M.S. Pinafore (1878)
Source: 1878, HMS Pinafore, act 2, also quoted in Dictionary of Quotations, p. 354 (2005)
H.M.S. Pinafore (1878)
Source: 1878, HMS Pinafore, act 2, also quoted in Dictionary of Quotations, p. 353-354 (2005)
Actually an ad-lib introduced by Rutland Barrington when playing the rôle of Pooh-Bah, to the annoyance of Gilbert.
The Mikado (1885)
