The "Bab" Ballads. [together with:] More "Bab" Ballads. Much Sound and Little Sense

London: John Camden Hotten [and] George Routledge and Sons, 1869 / 1872. Then they began to sing that extremely lovely thing,
'Scherzando! ma non troppo ppp.'"

First Editions of W.S. Gibert's The Bab Ballads in Two Superb 'Sunken-Panel' Pictorial Bindings

RIVIÈRE & SON, binder. GILBERT, W.S. The "Bab" Ballads. [together with:] More "Bab" Ballads. Much Sound and Little Sense. London: John Camden Hotten [and] George Routledge and Sons, 1869 [and 1872].

First editions. Two octavo volumes (7 1/4 x 5 1/4 inches; 184 x 133 mm. [&] 7 x 5 3/8 inches; 179 x 137 mm.). ix, [2], 14-222, [4, adv.]; viii, [1], 14-224, [4. adv.] pp. Black and white frontispieces with original tissue guards, black and white text illustrations throughout.

Bound c. 1920 by Rivière & Son for the Gardenside Bookshop, Boston in full emerald crushed levant morocco with a gilt decorated broad inlaid border of maroon morocco, enclosing an elaborate gilt frame surrounding a maroon morocco border and decorated sunken central panel within which are figures from the text pictorially depicted with multi-colored, padded morocco onlays. The Bab Ballads with the onlaid figures of Babette and Jacot (page 67) and More Bab Ballads with the onlaid figures of Sir Berkely and William Lee (page 122). Lower boards with gilt ruled maroon morocco border, surrounding an elaborate gilt border with decorative gilt corner pieces. Spines with five raised bands, decoratively tooled and lettered in gilt in compartments, gilt ruled board edges, elaborate gilt turn-ins, cream watered silk liners and end-leaves, all edges gilt. Original gilt decorated green cloth covers bound in at end of each volume. Housed together in the original felt-lined, green cloth slipcase. A very fine set.

"Originally published in the columns of FUN, a monthly magazine, The Bab Ballads are light verse by W. S. Gilbert, illustrated with his own comic drawings. Gilbert wrote the Ballads before he became famous for his comic opera librettos with Arthur Sullivan. In writing The Bab Ballads Gilbert developed his unique 'topsy-turvy' style, where the humor was derived by setting up a ridiculous premise and working out its logical consequences, however absurd. The Ballads also reveal Gilbert's cynical and satirical approach to humor. They became famous on their own, as well as being a source for plot elements, characters and songs that Gilbert would recycle in the Gilbert and Sullivan operas.
The Bab Ballads take their name from Gilbert's childhood nickname, and he later began to sign his illustrations 'Bab'" (Wikipedia).

By 1868, Gilbert's poems had won sufficient popularity to justify a collected edition. He selected forty-four of the poems (thirty-four of them illustrated) for an edition of The "Bab" Ballads - Much Sound and Little Sense. A second collected edition, More "Bab" Ballads, including thirty-five ballads (all illustrated), appeared in 1872.

"Nothing else quite like the Ballads has ever been produced in the English language. They contain both satire and nonsense, as well as a great deal of utter absurdity. The Ballads were read aloud at private dinner-parties, public banquets and even in the House of Lords. The ballads have been much published, and there are even recordings of readings of some of them