GILBERT & SULLIVAN

Part 1: The Correspondence, Diaries, Literary Manuscripts and Prompt Copies of W S Gilbert (1836-1911) from the British Library, London

"The world will be a long while forgetting Gilbert and Sullivan. Every Spring their great works will be revived. . They made enormous contributions to the pleasure of the race. They left the world merrier than they found it. They were men whose lives were rich with honest striving and high achievement and useful service."
H L Mencken, Baltimore Evening Sun, 30 May 1911

If you want to understand Victorian culture and society, then the Gilbert and Sullivan operas are an obvious starting point. These productions were massively successful in their own day, filling theatres all over Britain. They were also a major Victorian cultural export. A new show in New York raised a frenzy at the box office and Harper's New Monthly Magazine (Feb 1886) stated that the 'two men have the power of attracting thousands and thousands of people daily for months to be entertained.'

H L Mencken's comments of 1911 have been proven right. Gilbert & Sullivan societies thrive all over the world and new productions continue to spring up in the West End and on Broadway, in Buxton and Harrogate, in Cape Town and Sydney, in Tokyo and Hong Kong, Ottawa and Philadelphia.

Some of the topical references may now be lost, but the basis of the stories in universal myths and the attack of broad targets such as class, bureaucracy, the legal system, horror and the abuse of power are as relevant today as they ever were.

Two of the key ingredients for the success of the Gilbert and Sullivan operas were the libretti and the stage management. Both of these areas can be examined in detail with the sources provided here. Part 1 features:

- Drafts & synopses of plays (mostly autograph and with much radically different from the final versions) including Topsy-Turveydom, Sweethearts, Tom Cobb, HMS Pinafore, Patience, The Mikado, The Yeoman of the Guard, Foggerty's Fairy, The Gondoliers, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, Utopia Limited, His Excellency, The Grand Duke, The Fairy's Dilemma, The Fortune Hunter, Fallen Fairies and The Hooligan. These amply illustrate Gilbert's working methods developing from an anecdotal story to an expanded version with summaries of conversations, through overhauls and corrections, to a working copy.

- Gilbert's own prompt copies, partly privately printed, of plays and libretti with autograph notes giving property plots, plans of sets and stage directions with occasional corrections. Some of the plays covered are Dulcamara (his first publicly performed work - a burlesque), Robert the Devil, Princess Ida, Pygmalion and Galatea (a work for which he has said to have received £40,000), Charity, Gretchen, The Ne'er do Well, Comedy and Tragedy, Trial By Jury (his first collaboration with Sullivan), The Sorcerer, HMS Pinafore, Pirates of Penzance, Patience, Iolanthe, The Mikado, Ruddigore, The Yeoman of the Guard, The Gondoliers, His Excellency and Fallen Fairies.

- Drawings by Gilbert for the Bab Ballads and Songs of a Savoyard and photographs recording costumes and stage settings for the Fairy's Dilemma, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, Comedy and Tragedy, The Sorcerer, HMS Pinafore, The Pirates of Penzance, Patience, Ruddigore, Utopia Limited, The Grand Duke, His Excellency, The Mountebanks and The Hooligan, as well as his house at Grim's Dyke and scenes from Japanese life.

- His general correspondence, 1866-1911; papers relating the construction and leasing of the Garrick Theatre, 1888-1896 (owned by Gilbert); box office returns for Gretchen and The Mountebanks; papers regarding the production of Engaged in Canada and the USA, 1879; the visitors' book from Grim's Dyke, 1906-1936; and diaries, 1878 and 1904-1911.

- Records of Gilbert and Sullivan's visit to New York in 1879 with records of the weekly takings and expenses of HMS Pinafore and The Pirates of Penzance, 1879-1881.

These sources are indispensable for any study of Gilbert & Sullivan, their productions and their impact on Victorian society. They will also be of great interest to students of Victorian stage history and by a wide range of scholars investigating issues as diverse as Victorian attitudes to race, Orientalism, the transmission of cultural values and the antecedents of Shaw, Wilde and Pirandello.