The Bab Ballads

Captain Reece gives his sailors hot-water cans, valets, even cream ices. Then he asks what else could make them happy—and his coxswain has a proposal.

First published in book form in 1869, W. S. Gilbert’s The Bab Ballads delights in absurd ideas followed through with perfectly straight faces. A curate’s meekness becomes a contest; a private’s suspicion turns military rank upside down; behind a dancer’s glittering costume, Gilbert glimpses a harder life. And aboard the Mantelpiece, Captain Reece takes his promise to please his crew with such seriousness that even his own future may have to give way. What happens when duty means granting the sailors’ most personal wish?

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