About the Book

I think one of the things I'm going to write about in this daily blog is the process of writing my book Gilbert, of Gilbert and Sullivan (to be published in May 2011 by The History Press). By the way, I realise that I've said "write" and "writing" in that first sentence, and I've just spent a few seconds worrying about it; but I've now decided that stylistic nonos are probably just to be expected in a daily blog, so just let me apologise briefly--I apologise for my prose--and then we can move on.

GOGAS is a biography of W.S. Gilbert (1836-1911). There have been biographies before, of course. Edith Browne's (1907) was really a kind of extended newpaper profile, based on interviews with WSG, chatty, a bit woolly round the edges, but with some invaluable snippets of information nestling in the wool. Dark & Grey (1923) is full of affection (too much so for some tastes, as if his friends were not allowed to speak well of him), and quotes many of his letters. This is surely the best way of allowing us, the readers, to become acquainted with him: let him speak to us directly.

In 1957 Hesketh Pearson's Gilbert: His Life and Strife was published. It made use of his private papers, which had just been made accessible to research. Pearson was a real writer, and the book is brilliant, entertaining, and informative. It is also, in many key respects, misleading and inaccurate.

Jane Stedman's biography of Gilbert, published in 1996, was in fact the first to include a reasonably full account of Gilbert's life. I found, and still find, this astonishing. The book is flawed, but its achievement in mapping out the territory is immense. For the first time Gilbert's life before Sullivan was recounted as if it were of interest.

My book is the first biography of Gilbert since Stedman's, though Michael Ainger's "dual biography" of Gilbert and Sullivan (2002) contained a good deal of new research about Gilbert's life. I have attempted two things. The first thing is to carry on Hesketh Pearson's good work in writing an account of Gilbert's life which is readable as a narrative. I'm not sure how well I've succeeded in that one; the proof will be in the eating.

The second thing I've attempted in the book is more difficult to describe. You will, I hope, understand that what I'm writing here is a first draft of what I'm trying to express. Maybe I'll say it better later. But, well, here goes. Most accounts of Gilbert's life treat his work with Sullivan as the only interesting or important thing he ever did. It is practically assumed that his life only began with his first successful collaboration with Sullivan, Trial by Jury in 1875, when he was 38 years old. (I have even seen him described as having been a young man at this time, which is crazy, especially in a Victorian context.)

The fact is that Trial by Jury heralded the start of Gilbert's third career as a writer. The first began in 1861 when he started writing for the comic journal Fun. Under Fun's slightly boozy wing Gilbert flourished as a cartoonist, satirist, dispenser of vitriol, and, increasingly, as a writer of wild and brilliant verse. His second career started in 1866 when he began writing for the stage. By 1875 he was known as a cynical, clever, and unpleasant playwright, who could never be relied upon to provide the right happy ending or to make his heroes and heroines as lovable as was considered necessary. Even then, he was known as a purveyor of "topsyturvydom." He turned all established values upside down, and the result was too realistic to be borne. His imminent demise as a writer for the stage was being predicted; the public would not stand for it. The fact is that Victorian audiences wanted to be comforted; they wanted their values upheld. Gilbert scorned many of these values, and he kicked them into the mud. No wonder he was disliked.

Gilbert and Sullivan opera was his third career. With the help of Arthur Sullivan's music and Richard D'Oyly Carte's management he became a rich and respected figure. He became a pillar of the establishment. My book contains an account of these years of triumph--of course. But I must tell you that it is the earlier years, the years of struggle when his plays and poems seemed to express his mind more freely, that really interest me.

There has been a turn of the tide in recent years, and writers have started to describe Gilbert in monstrous terms. He was undoubtedly ambitious, sometimes arrogant, and in many ways inflexible. It puzzles me that these should be considered unusual characteristics. But these were the characteristics which helped him to rise to the top of his profession. And I believe one of the keys to his unusual character can be found by examining the first thirty years of his life. Here I will make a bold statement because it is true. I am the first person to give a decent account of the first thirty years of Gilbert's life. And I think this is a shocking statement. Previous writers have tended to ignore these first thirty years as an irrelevance. No wonder that certain other writers have decided he was a monster: his marked characteristics appear to have arrived in the world with no background or cause, like Richard III who, according to Tudor propaganda, was born with hair and teeth. That is one of the perceptions which I want to alter.

Gilbert was a flawed man. I think that will come through in the book. But he was a great man. He was loved as well as feared. He changed English and British culture. He focused the satirical and ironic parts of British culture, creating a new kind of deadpan humour. He felt, deep in his bones, that the world was absurd, and this very modern perception infuses everything he wrote. It can be said without exaggeration that he was an Absurdist before Absurdism was invented.

And that, I think, is enough for one day.

Marking Time

Unfortunately, I was unable to do much GOGAS work today; we are having friends over tomorrow to see in the New Year, and I was occupied mostly in shopping, getting the various ingredients for the recipes. A cake tin of the right size for the chocolate brownies eludes me.

However, I might as well mention the W S Gilbert Society website at wsgibert.co.uk - I added a lot of stuff to it yesterday and is now looking pretty serviceable. The old website has now disappeared, because UKOnline, who hosted it, are being taken over by another company.... Virgin, I think. Hence the new address. Now all I have to do is tell everyone about it.

I also need to arrange to extend deadlines for certain articles which I have promised. Christmas and New Year always take up more of my time than I expect. But next week (sigh, next week) should be better.

As this is turning into an amazingly dull entry, let me spice it up a little with a pic of the man himself. It isn't one of the well known photos, and I like it a lot. Most portraits of Gilbert show him as a pretty grim and formidable character, but here he has a twinkle in his eyes and... can that be a smile underneath the moustache? The picture is from a cigarette card (Ogden's Guinea Gold Cigarettes) and the caption reads: "W.S. GILBERT The famous Librettist who has produced so many charming Operas in collaboration with the late Sir Arthur Sullivan."

What is GOGAS?

Hello. My name is Andrew Crowther, and I've written a book called Gilbert, of Gilbert and Sullivan (hence GOGAS). It's going to be published by The History Press in May 2011. It's a biography of William Schwenck Gilbert, who wrote the words of the Gilbert and Sullivan operas, as well as being the foremost dramatist of his time, and a pioneering director, and a gifted cartoonist, and a notable wit, and much else besides.

I'm writing this because the next few months look like being interesting. I think, I hope, that the book will make at least a small splash; that it will get at least one or two proper reviews. My publisher is encouraging me to help publicise the book by placing a few articles in a few related periodicals, and by giving talks and so on. I have one or two ideas of my own as well....

All of this is new to me. I'm not a professional writer, though I consider myself a reasonably accomplished amateur. I can spell all the words that I use, and my grammar's as good as my neighbour's, to quote Iolanthe. I've also written several plays which have received warm reactions from audiences in Bradford, where I live. The biography is as well written as I can make it, and I've tried to make it a readable narrative, rather than the collection of facts which a lot of biographies seem to be these days.

2011 marks the centenary of Gilbert's death. It also sees the 175th anniversary of his birth, and the 150th anniversary of the publication of his first professional work. I will be heavily involved in various events connected with the Gilbert Centenary celebrations, as I am the secretary of the W S Gilbert Society, and I know quite a lot about the old devil.

The aim is to write an entry every day--inspired by Richard Herring's "Warming Up" blog. It should only take thirty minutes or so. Thirty minutes a day.... It doesn't seem impossible. Well. We shall see.