The story of one of the world's most productive and satisfactory collaborations—words by William S. Gilbert, music by Arthur S. Sullivan—is set forth in this book. It is the chronicle of two artists, who, whether they liked it or not (and often enough they did not!) were yoked together for more than twenty years by their success as collaborators.

The story begins with the early adventures of Gilbert and Sullivan. Gilbert was kidnapped in infancy by a band of Italian brigands, and hints of this history appear in Iolanthe. Sullivan was a Chapel Royal Chorister and an honor student at the Leipzig Conservatory.  Both had achieved a large measure of recognition by the time they began their work together with Thespis and Trial by Jury.

Richard O'Oyly Carte, the brilliant theatrical producer, staked his reputation and fortune on the genius of Gilbert and Sullivan, and ten years after the production of their first joint operas, he designed the lavish Savoy Theater especially for their work. The Savoy Theater opened with the first performance of Patience, a perfectly constructed satire on the poet Oscar Wilde and the current "Esthetic" craze. The play was an immediate success, and has continued to be so to this day.

The English under Queen Victoria loved the satires on themselves, and in America the operas were so popular that at one time forty professional companies were playing the same opera.

The Savoy Theater and the comic operas of Gilbert and Sullivan stood for all that was tasteful, witty, lyrically and musically delightful in popular entertainment. The artists who were associated with the productions accepted the title Savoyard as a badge of distinction.

Thespis, Trial by Jury, The Sorcerer, H.M.S. Pinafore, Pirates of Penzance, Iolanthe, Princess Ida, The Mikado, Ruddigore, The Yeomen of the Guard, The Gondoliers, Utopia, Limited, and The Grand Duke, are the "golden fourteen". The portraits of the two men who accomplished this living work are vivid and colorful: Gilbert, sharp-tongued, blunt, sarcastic, the most heartily applauded playwright and most thoroughly disliked man of his day—Sullivan, the born courtier, friend of kings and princes, humorous, good-natured, gentle and considerate, the most beloved composer in England.

How did two such different men manage to work together? Where did they find the inspiration for the gay and impudent words, the light and joyous melodies? The answer makes a fascinating story, and Claire Lee Purdy has told it with the same lively interest which was in her earlier Victor Herbert and He Heard America Sing, etc.

From the book