F C Burnand

Sir Francis Cowley Burnand (29 November 1836 - 21 April 1917), usually known as F. C. Burnand, was an English comic writer and prolific playwright, best known today as the librettist of Arthur Sullivan's opera Cox and Box. The son of a prosperous family, he was educated at Eton and Cambridge, and was expected to follow a conventional career in the law or in the church, but he concluded that his vocation was the theatre. From his schooldays he had written comic plays, and from 1860 until the end of the 19th century, he produced a series of more than 200 Victorian burlesques, farces, pantomimes and other stage works. His early successes included the burlesques Ixion, or the Man at the Wheel (1863) and The Latest Edition of Black-Eyed Susan; or, the Little Bill that Was Taken Up (1866). Also in 1866, he adapted the popular farce Box and Cox as a comic opera, Cox and Box, with music by Sullivan. The piece became a popular favourite and was later frequently used by the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company as a curtain raiser; it remains regularly performed today. By the 1870s, Burnand was generating a prodigious output of plays as well as comic pieces and illustrations for the humour magazine Punch. Among his 55-stage works during the decade was another frequently revived hit, Betsy (1879). For Punch, among other things, he wrote the popular column "Happy Thoughts", in which the narrator recorded the difficulties and distractions of everyday life. Also admired were his burlesques of other writers' works. Burnand was a contributor to Punch for 45 years and its editor from 1880 until 1906 and is credited with adding much to the popularity and prosperity of the magazine. His editorship of the original publication of The Diary of a Nobody by the brothers George and Weedon Grossmith was a high point of his tenure in 1888-89. Many of his articles were collected and published in book form. His stage successes in the 1890s included his English-language versions of two Edmond Audran operettas, titled La Cigale and Miss Decima (both in 1891). His last works included collaborations on pantomimes of Cinderella (1905) and Aladdin (1909). Known generally for his genial wit and good humor, Burnand was nevertheless intensely envious of his contemporary W. S. Gilbert but was unable to emulate his rival's success as a comic opera librettist. In other forms of theatre Burnand was outstandingly successful, with his works receiving London runs of up to 550 performances and extensive tours in the British provinces and the US. He published several humorous books and memoirs and was knighted in 1902 for his work on Punch.

Sir Francis Cowley Burnand (29 November 1836 - 21 April 1917), usually known as F. C. Burnand, was an English comic writer and prolific playwright, best known today as the librettist of Arthur Sullivan's opera Cox and Box. The son of a prosperous family, he was educated at Eton and Cambridge, and was expected to follow a conventional career in the law or in the church, but he concluded that his vocation was the theatre. From his schooldays he had written comic plays, and from 1860 until the end of the 19th century, he produced a series of more than 200 Victorian burlesques, farces, pantomimes and other stage works. His early successes included the burlesques Ixion, or the Man at the Wheel (1863) and The Latest Edition of Black-Eyed Susan; or, the Little Bill that Was Taken Up (1866). Also in 1866, he adapted the popular farce Box and Cox as a comic opera, Cox and Box, with music by Sullivan. The piece became a popular favourite and was later frequently used by the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company as a curtain raiser; it remains regularly performed today. By the 1870s, Burnand was generating a prodigious output of plays as well as comic pieces and illustrations for the humour magazine Punch. Among his 55-stage works during the decade was another frequently revived hit, Betsy (1879). For Punch, among other things, he wrote the popular column "Happy Thoughts", in which the narrator recorded the difficulties and distractions of everyday life. Also admired were his burlesques of other writers' works. Burnand was a contributor to Punch for 45 years and its editor from 1880 until 1906 and is credited with adding much to the popularity and prosperity of the magazine. His editorship of the original publication of The Diary of a Nobody by the brothers George and Weedon Grossmith was a high point of his tenure in 1888-89. Many of his articles were collected and published in book form. His stage successes in the 1890s included his English-language versions of two Edmond Audran operettas, titled La Cigale and Miss Decima (both in 1891). His last works included collaborations on pantomimes of Cinderella (1905) and Aladdin (1909). Known generally for his genial wit and good humor, Burnand was nevertheless intensely envious of his contemporary W. S. Gilbert but was unable to emulate his rival's success as a comic opera librettist. In other forms of theatre Burnand was outstandingly successful, with his works receiving London runs of up to 550 performances and extensive tours in the British provinces and the US. He published several humorous books and memoirs and was knighted in 1902 for his work on Punch. Edward Linley Sambourne (4 January 1844 - 3 August 1910) was an English cartoonist and illustrator most famous for being a draughtsman for the satirical magazine Punch for more than forty years and rising to the position of 'First Cartoonist' in his final decade.

From long-haired ‘Fleshly Poets’ to intense, ‘ultra pre-Raphaelite’ artists, few stylistic movements in the history of art and literature have provoked the imagination and indignation of British playwrights as much as the Aesthetic Movement.During an intense and short-lived period from 1877 to 1881, the London stage saw fierce competition as playwrights and theatre managers raced to capture the zeitgeist, capitalizing on the unorthodox, eccentric and highly theatrical proponents of the Aesthetic Movement. The ‘quite too utterly utter’ Apostles of this new school were satirized to such an extent that the Illustrated London News (1881) complained that the London stage was ‘thickly sown over with a crop of lilies and sunflowers’, with ‘aesthetes in every burlesque and comic opera produced’. This edited volume brings the four key plays satirizing the Aesthetic Movement together for the first time in an easily accessible format, allowing scholars and students to discover their secrets:The Grasshopper by John Hollingshead (Gaiety Theatre, 1877)Where’s The Cat? by James Albery (Criterion, 1880)The Colonel by F.C. Burnand (Prince of Wales’s Theatre, 1881) Patience by W.S. Gilbert (Opera Comique/Savoy, 1881)Including a brief introduction by Dr. Devon Cox, providing background and context to the dynamic, symbiotic relationship between the Aesthetic Movement and the British stage, and complete with biographical notes and an introduction to each play, Aesthetic Movement Satire: A Dramatic Anthology shines a light on this explosive flashpoint in British Theatre

Reprint of the original, first published in 1875.

Reprint of the original, first published in 1875.

Reprint of the original, first published in 1875.

Reprint of the original, first published in 1875.

Reprint of the original, first published in 1873. The publishing house Anatiposi publishes historical books as reprints. Due to their age, these books may have missing pages or inferior quality. Our aim is to preserve these books and make them available to the public so that they do not get lost.

Reprint of the original, first published in 1873. The publishing house Anatiposi publishes historical books as reprints. Due to their age, these books may have missing pages or inferior quality. Our aim is to preserve these books and make them available to the public so that they do not get lost.

Reprint of the original, first published in 1872.

Reprint of the original, first published in 1872.