Foggerty's Fairy and Other Tales

Foggerty's Fairy and Other Tales is an 1890 book by W. S. Gilbert, collecting several of the short stories and essays he wrote in his early career as a magazine writer (before 1874). A number of them were later adapted as plays or opera librettos. Copyright problems dogged the book. It was pulled from market shortly after its publication, and is long out of print. Some of the stories were reprinted in the 1985 compilation, The Lost Stories of W. S. Gilbert. Some of the stories also served as the basis for a BBC Radio 4 series, "Gilbert without Sullivan." Contents and plot summaries Foggerty's Fairy — First published as "The Story of a Twelfth Cake" in Graphic, Christmas Number, 1874 (retitled "Foggerty's Fairy" for the 1890 collection). A series of alternate histories of a somewhat roguish fellow, Freddy Foggerty, who is attempting to escape the consequences of having deserted the army some years previously. After meeting up with his former sergeant, he obtains the help of the titular fairy who allows him to undo events in his past. Unfortunately, though in the main timeline he has overcome his chequered past and become a respectable shop owner, in the alternate histories he turns out to have become a slave ship captain, a banker about to be arrested for fraud, and so on. Eventually, he returns to the original timeline: it turns out the sergeant hadn't recognised him, and everything ends happily. The play Foggerty's Fairy uses the same device of changing the past timeline with a completely different plot that doesn't require so many changes of scenery. An Elixir of Love — First published in Graphic, Christmas Number, 1876. This story is the basis for The Sorcerer, and roughly similar in plot until the end. In the opera, the status quo is restored; in the story, Jenny (Aline in the opera) going off with the equivalent of Dr. Daly, and Stanley (Alexis) must live alone.