The Bab Ballads

The Bab Ballads reveal the young W.S. Gilbert already wielding the satirical blade that would later cut through his immortal comic operas. Written under his childhood nickname "Bab" and published in Fun magazine between 1869-1873, these verses dispatch Victorian pretension with merciless precision. A sea captain offers his family members to sailors in marriage. Two clergymen compete to be deemed the most meek. A man attempts suicide seventeen times, each failure more inconvenient than the last. The scenarios are absurd, the logic impeccable, the rhymes irresistible. Gilbert's genius lies in his deadpan delivery of the impossible. He treats the most ridiculous situations with bureaucratic seriousness, allowing the gap between tone and content to do the comic work. These poems precede and foreshadow the world-conquering Sullivan collaborations, displaying the same DNA that would produce H.M.S. Pinafore and The Mikado: irreverence wrapped in elegance, madness concealed beneath propriety. For readers who crave clever verse that rewards attention, this is Gilbert in his native habitat, proving that laughter and language were his twin obsessions from the very beginning.