W S Gilbert's work time-line
Arthur Sullivan: Biography
William Gilbert Snr: Biography
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WILLIAM SCHWENCK GILBERT 1836 - 1911
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Gilbert and Sullivan Society · Exeter · Devon
A brief biography
Gilbert, born in 1836, became a much
respected theatre critic, writer of short
stories and a series of comic poems known as the ‘Bab’ Ballads, which overshadow the works of Hood, Carroll and Lear. His first acknowledged stage work, a burlesque of Donizetti’s L’Elisir d’Amore, appeared in London during 1866, although his first play, Uncle Baby (written under a pseudonym) appeared as early as 1863.
A series of burlesques, dramas, comedies and
comic operas followed, and it was seldom
during the 1870s and 1880s that there were
less than half a dozen Gilbert works playing
in various London theatres at any one time,
with many more in the provinces. The comedy,
Engaged, still holds the stage to this day and is
generally acknowledged to be the forerunner of Wilde’s Importance Of Being Ernest. In total
Gilbert has almost 70 stage works to his name.