A Sensation Novel

For the literary genre, see sensation novel.

Poster by Robert Jacob Hamerton for the original 1871 production

A Sensation Novel is a comic musical play in three acts (or volumes) written by the dramatist W. S. Gilbert, with music composed by Thomas German Reed. It was first performed on 31 January 1871 at the Royal Gallery of Illustration. Only four of German Reed's songs survive.[1] Nearly 25 years later, the music was rewritten and published by Florian Pascal (Joseph Williams, Jr).[2] The story concerns an author suffering from writer's block who finds that the characters in his novel are dissatisfied.

The piece satirises the sensation novels popular as pulp detective fiction in the Victorian era. Later in his career, when Gilbert wrote the famous series of Savoy operas with Arthur Sullivan, he reused elements of A Sensation Novel in their opera Ruddigore.

  1. ^ Howarth, Paul. A Sensation Novel, the G&S Archive, 12 August, 2011, accessed 8 December 2020
  2. ^ Smith, Donald J. Information "A Sensation Novel (1871)", The Gilbert and Sullivan Discography, Marc Shepherd (ed.), accessed 16 October 2016