W. S. Gilbert

Sir William Schwenck Gilbert (November 18, 1836 – May 29, 1911) is an English dramatist, librettist, poet and illustrator best known for his collaboration with composer Arthur Sullivan, which produces 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 theater, The Mikado.

The popularity of these works will be 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 includes over seventy-five 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 begins to focus, in the 1860s, on writing light verse, including his Bab Ballads, short stories, theater reviews and illustrations, often for Fun magazine.

He also begins to write burlesques and his first comic plays, developing a unique absurdist, inverted style that will later be known as his "topsy-turvy" style.

He also develops a realistic method of stage direction and a reputation as a strict theater director.

In the 1870s, Gilbert writes forty 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 focuses 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 quarrels 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 wins the ensuing lawsuit, but the argument causes hurt feelings among the partnership.

Although Gilbert and Sullivan are persuaded to collaborate on two last operas, they are not as successful as the previous ones.

In later years, Gilbert writes several plays, and a few operas with other collaborators.

He retires, with his wife Lucy, and their ward, Nancy McIntosh, to a country estate, Grim's Dyke.

He is knighted in 1907.

Gilbert dies of a heart attack while attempting to rescue a young woman to whom he is giving a swimming lesson in the lake at his home.

Gilbert's plays inspire other dramatists, including Oscar Wilde and George Bernard Shaw, and his comic operas with Sullivan inspire the later development of American musical theater, especially influencing Broadway librettists and lyricists.

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