A book of ballads and songs by W.S.Gilbert, English dramatist and writer of humorous verse, he is best remembered as librettist of the Gilbert and Sullivan comic operas. I collected the most popular of the songs and ballads which I had written for the series of light operas with which my name is associated, and published them under the title of "Songs of a Savoyard". It recently occurred to me that these songs had so much in common with "The Bab Ballads" that it might be advisable to weld the two books into one. This is, briefly, the history of the present volume. Gilbert wrote a large number of ballads for the magazine Fun using his pen-name Bab. These Bab Ballads became famous on their own, as well as being a source for plots and songs for the Grand Operas. Contains 'The Yarn of The Nancy Bell', 'Captain Reece', 'The Bishop and the Busman' and many others.
