Original Plays, Second Series
Tags
Summary
Editor's review
Who it's for
A good fit for
- Literature students studying Victorian British drama and dramatic form
- Enthusiasts interested in the textual sources of Gilbert and Sullivan comic operas
- Theatre society members seeking English scripts for reading aloud or performance practice
- Readers who enjoy witty dialogue and absurd satire and can read English originals
Not a good fit for
- General leisure readers hoping for full novel-style narrative
- Learners whose English reading ability is not yet sufficient for dense dialogue and period language
- Readers who need a Chinese translation or a heavily annotated edition for comprehension
Reading tips
- Begin by reading the table of contents and choosing a shorter play to sample; once familiar with Gilbert's dialogue rhythm, move on to others.
- While reading, mark stage directions and character entrances and exits to help reconstruct the sense of stage space.
- Read alongside background material on Gilbert and Sullivan's collaborations to understand the targets of his satire.
- For performance practice, read aloud by role, paying attention to pauses and shifts of tone in the lines.
About the publisher
Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.
Contents
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
- 6
- 7
- 8
- 9
- 10
- 11
- 12
- 13
- 14
- 15
- 16
- 17
- 18
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- 22
- 23
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- 25
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- 27
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- 47
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- 50
- 51
- 52
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- 69
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- 71
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- 78
FAQ
Is this book a novel or a play?
Can I read the second series without having read the first?
How is the electronic edition best read?
Comments
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About the author
W. S. Gilbert (William Schwenck Gilbert, 1836–1911) was an English playwright and poet. Public information about him is limited; the library holds eight of his works, chiefly humorous verse and plays. Representative works include The Bab Ballads and its expanded collection The Bab Ballads, with Which Are Included Songs of a Savoyard, Fifty Bab Ballads: Much Sound and Little Sense, Bab Ballads and Savoy Songs, More Bab Ballads, Original Plays, Original Plays, Second Series, and Songs of a Savoyard. These works show his gift for light, nimble rhyme and witty narrative poetry, often with absurd situations and ironic touches. The Bab Ballads first appeared in magazines with his own illustrations and were later collected; their ballads and motifs also fed into his stage writing. His plays and Savoy opera lyrics are closely linked, marked by playful language and neat construction, and have had a lasting influence on English light opera and comic verse.
