Preface

The “Bab Ballads” appeared originally in the columns of “Fun,” when that periodical was under the editorship of the late Tom Hood.  They were subsequently republished in two volumes, one called “The Bab Ballads,” the other “More Bab Ballads.”  The period during which they were written extended over some three or four years; many, however, were composed hastily, and under the discomforting necessity of having to turn out a quantity of lively verse by a certain day in every week.  As it seemed to me (and to others) that the volumes were disfigured by the presence of these hastily written impostors, I thought it better to withdraw from both volumes such Ballads as seemed to show evidence of carelessness or undue haste, and to publish the remainder in the compact form under which they are now presented to the reader.

It may interest some to know that the first of the series, “The Yarn of the Nancy Bell,” was originally offered to “Punch,”—to which I was, at that time, an occasional contributor.  It was, however, declined by the then Editor, on the ground that it was “too cannibalistic for his readers’ tastes.”

W. S. Gilbert

24 The Boltons, South Kensington,
         August, 1876.

CONTENTS.

	### Page
Captain Reece	13
The Rival Curates	18
Only a Dancing Girl	24
To a Little Maid	27
The Troubadour	28
Ferdinando and Elvira; or, the Gentle Pieman	33
To my Bride	37
Sir Macklin	39
The Yarn of the “Nancy Bell”	44
The Bishop of Rum-Ti-Foo	48
The Precocious Baby	54
To Phœbe	59
Baines Carew, Gentleman	60
Thomas Winterbottom Hance	66
A Discontented Sugar Broker	72
The Pantomime “Super” to his Mask	78
The Ghost, the Gallant, the Gael, and the Goblin	80
The Phantom Curate	85
King Borria Bungalee Boo	88
Bob Polter	93
The Story of Prince Agib	99
Ellen McJones Aberdeen	104
Peter the Wag	109
To the Terrestrial Globe	114
Gentle Alice Brown	115
Mister William	120
The Bumboat Woman’s Story	125
Lost Mr. Blake	131
The Baby’s Vengeance	137
The Captain and the Mermaids	143
Annie Protheroe.  A Legend of Stratford-le-Bow	149
An Unfortunate Likeness	155
The King of Canoodle-dum	161
The Martinet	167
The Sailor Boy to his Lass	173
The Reverend Simon Magus	179
My Dream	184
The Bishop of Rum-Ti-Foo again	189
The Haughty Actor	194
The Two Majors	200
Emily, John, James, and I.  A Derby Legend	205
The Perils of Invisibility	210
The Mystic Selvagee	215
Phrenology	221
The Fairy Curate	226
The Way of Wooing	233
Hongree and Mahry.  A Recollection of a Surrey Melodrama	237
Etiquette	243
At a Pantomime	249
Haunted	253