The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan

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The fourteen comic operas created by W. S. Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan between 1871 and 1896 — from Trial by Jury to The Grand Duke — are among the most durably popular works in the English theatrical tradition, blending Gilbert's savage satirical verse with Sullivan's melodically irresistible music. H.M.S. Pinafore (1878) satirizes the Royal Navy; The Pirates of Penzance (1879) romanticizes duty and accident of birth; The Mikado (1885) lampoons Victorian bureaucracy through a Japanese setting. The scripts, absent Sullivan's music, still reveal the wit and construction that made them work; they are among the most quotable plays in English.