Original Plays, Second Series — Inside the Classic

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In Category - Adventure Picaresque Fiction

Authors: Gilbert, W. S. (William Schwenck), 1836-1911 Digital Source: Project Gutenberg Gutenberg Release Year: 2019 First Publication Year: Not confirmed

Key Word: Operas -- Librettos; English drama Target Reader: Readers of public-domain and historical texts

Book Edition: Project Gutenberg digital edition Book Language: en

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Words 138,847

Reading time 604 min

Text sections 18

This digital edition of Original Plays, Second Series — Inside the Classic is described by source-level measurements including 138,847 words, 10 hr 4 min estimated reading time, and 18 detected text sections.

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Source: Project Gutenberg record #59685

This second series of W. S. Gilbert's original plays includes nine works, from the fairy play 'Broken Hearts' to the comic opera 'The Pirates of Penzance'. The collection showcases Gilbert's characteristic wit, wordplay, and satirical edge, with recurring motifs of identity confusion, financial schemes, and romantic entanglements.

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ngrily_). And why choose me alone of all mankind To serve you in your island loneliness? Because my limbs, though crooked, are strongly framed? Bah, there are tall straight men as strong as I. Because my heart goes with my fealty? Why half _my_ wage would buy the heart and soul Of twenty well-proportioned servitors. Because by reason of my face and form I do not count as man? Yes! I’m an ape! A crippled, crumpled, devil-faced baboon, Who claims a place amid this loveliness By title of his sheer deformity! Now, monkey though I be, I am a man In all but face and form--I’ve a man’s heart, A man’s desire to love--and to be loved--(_HILDA seems amused._) Ay, you may laugh--but those who seek to laugh May find, methinks, more fitting merriment In such mad love as deals with sun-dials, Trees, rocks, and fountains, and such baby game. My love at least is human in its aim. It’s well you should know this--be on your guard! [_Exit MOUSTA._

_Hil._ In truth, the love that Mousta laughs at tells How strangely ordered is a woman’s heart! Dost thou remember how, when first we came To this fair isle, I said, in thoughtless jest, “As woman’s heart must love, and we are women, So let us choose our loves”--then, looking round, “This running fountain shall be mine,” I cried, And, kneeling by the brink, then sealed the vow As all such vows are sealed ’twixt men and women-- And thou, poor child, pleased with the jest, replied, “I take this dial to be my love for life!” Vavir, we little thought that in those words We pledged ourselves to an abiding love That rivals in its pure intensity The love that we had banished from our hearts! Yet so it is. We have so dwelt upon This idle fancy--keeping it alive With songs and sighs and vows of constancy, That we have tricked ourselves into a love Akin to that which we had all forsworn. I love this little fountain as my life!

_Vav._ To me my dial is more, far more, than life; It is the chronicle of the World’s life, Written by Heaven’s own hand. As, rapt in thought, I watch its silent solemn shadow creep From hour to hour, and so from day to day, True as the Sun itself--an awful record Of Heaven’s most perfect and most glorious order-- My love is lost in reverential awe. Oh I have chosen well in choosing this! It is a holy thing, that bears a warrant, Sent from the Source of Life, to tell the Earth That even Time is hastening to its end! What is mere world-love to such love as this?

_Hil._ And yet _thou_ hast no cause to shun world-love. When my great sorrow came and I withdrew To this lone isle with other broken hearts, Thou, heart-whole and untouched by love of Man, Yet gavest up the world and all it holds To bide with me.

_Vav._ I do not love the world. My darling sister found her sorrow there-- The world is naught to me. This tiny isle, But half a league in girth holds all _I_ love. _My_ world is where thou art--there let me stay For the few months that yet remain to me! I think my time on earth will be but brief.

_Hil._ Hush, hush, Vavir. I will not hear these things.

_Vav._ My life has been a very happy life, So free from pain and sorrow of its own That, but that I have shared my sister’s grief, I had not known what pain and sorrow are-- Yet even this calm rest--this changeless peace, Saps my poor fragile fabric day by day, And the first shaft that sorrow aims at it, May shake its puny structure to the ground!

_Hil._ Why, what sad silly fancy’s this, Vavir? Thou hast no pain, my child?

_Vav._ No pain, indeed; But a calm happiness so strangely still, It comes not of this world. I am to die Ere very long. Pray Heaven I be prepared!

_Hil._ It’s well for me and well for both of us I do not share these foolish fantasies! Why, silly child, believest thou that Time Will see the fruit that ripens on those cheeks, And note the dainty banquet of those lips, And not preserve such rich and radiant fare, For his own feasting in his own good time? Trust the old Epicure! [_Exeunt HILDA and VAVIR together._

_Enter FLORIAN. He comes down, looking around him in admiration._

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W. S. Gilbert's Original Plays, Second Series collects nine works that span the range of his dramatic output, from the fairy-tale melancholy of Broken Hearts to the nautical comedy of H.M.S. Pinafore. The volume reveals a playwright who delights in toying with identity and social convention. In Tom Cobb; or, Fortune's Toy, a financially desperate man named Tom Cobb schemes to fake his own death by assuming the identity of a deceased pauper who shares his name—a plot that hinges on the absurd precision of a shared moniker. Gilbert's dialogue crackles with ironic reversals: a character who declares he would 'blow his brains out' is immediately offered a 'safe and perfectly painless' alternative. The collection also includes the libretti for three of Gilbert and Sullivan's most enduring comic operas, showing the same verbal dexterity applied to musical theatre.

The Comedy of Financial Desperation

Throughout the plays in this volume, money troubles drive the plot with a relentless, almost farcical urgency. In Tom Cobb, the protagonist's debts to 'Ben Isaacs' lead him to embrace a scheme of 'dying by deputy.' The dialogue repeatedly circles back to the lack of funds: Tom laments that he cannot afford 'a pair of trousers or half a dozen socks,' and his friend Whipple, when asked for a loan, offers a 'plain answer' but no money. The pattern recurs in Engaged, where financial considerations complicate romantic proposals, and in The Sorcerer, where a love potion disrupts social order. Gilbert treats poverty not as a tragic condition but as a springboard for verbal and situational comedy. Characters negotiate debts with the same gravity they apply to matters of the heart, and the threat of ruin is always undercut by a punchline.

Identity as a Flexible Commodity

Gilbert repeatedly explores the idea that identity can be swapped, borrowed, or faked. In Tom Cobb, the protagonist literally becomes a dead man to escape his creditors. The play's premise—that two men share the same name, one living and one dead—allows for a legal fiction that Gilbert exploits for both humor and suspense. Similarly, H.M.S. Pinafore hinges on the revelation that a lowly sailor is actually of noble birth, while The Pirates of Penzance plays with the absurdity of a 'slave of duty' whose very identity is bound by a mistaken apprenticeship. In Broken Hearts, the setting itself—the 'Island of Broken Hearts'—suggests a world where emotional states define character. Gilbert's characters often adopt new names or roles with startling ease, suggesting that identity is less a fixed essence than a convenient fiction.

The Mechanics of Farce and Fairy Tale

The volume juxtaposes two modes: the tightly plotted farce and the whimsical fairy play. Broken Hearts is subtitled 'An Entirely Original Fairy Play' and is set in a tropical landscape with a dwarf named Mousta, while Tom Cobb is a three-act farce driven by mistaken identity and rapid exits. Yet both share Gilbert's signature structure: a premise that is logically absurd is pursued with relentless, almost legalistic rigor. In Tom Cobb, the plan to 'die by deputy' is explained step by step, complete with burial fees and a certificate of death. In The Sorcerer, a love potion creates chaos by making everyone fall in love with the first person they see—a rule applied with mechanical precision. Gilbert's plays often feel like mathematical proofs applied to human folly, where the emotional stakes are high but the tone remains coolly ironic.

Readers approaching this collection will find that Gilbert's plays reward attention to his verbal craftsmanship. The dialogue is dense with puns, inversions, and comic timing that can be appreciated on the page as much as on the stage. Because the volume includes both straight plays and libretti, it offers a chance to compare how Gilbert adapts his style to different forms. The plays are best read with an ear for rhythm and a tolerance for contrivance—the pleasure lies not in realism but in the elegant machinery of the plot.

There's a bittersweet ache in rereading Original Plays, Second Series, especially watching Gilbert's clever schemers get tangled in their own romantic nets. It reminds me of eighteenth-century Genoa, where Schiller's conspiracies unravel with the same quiet inevitability. That feeling of fate closing in—whether through a comic misunderstanding or a political plot—stays with you, oddly comforting. I find myself thinking of Fiesco; or, the Genoese Conspiracy: A Tragedy — Story, Setting & Ideas lately, like an old friend’s face in a crowd.