English literature Also in 1896 A.E. Housman published at his own expense "A Shropshire Lad". Writers of comic verse included the dramatist, librettist, poet and illustrator W.S. Gilbert (1836–1911), who is best known for his fourteen comic operas, produced in collaboration with the composer Sir Arthur Sullivan, of which the most famous include "H.M.S. Pinafore", and "The Pirates of Penzance". Novelist Thomas Hardy (1840–1928) wrote poetry throughout his career, but he did not publish his first collection until 1898, so that he tends to be treated as a 20th-century poet. Now regarded as a major poet, Gerard Manley Hopkins's (1844–1889) "Poems" were
Galatea (mythology) a commonplace of pastoral fictions, because of the well known myth of Acis and Galatea; one of Honoré d'Urfé's characters in "L'Astrée" was a Galatea, though not this sculptural creation. The story of Pygmalion appeared earliest in a Hellenistic work, Philostephanus' history of Cyprus, "De Cypro". It is retold in Ovid's "Metamorphoses", where the king Pygmalion is made into a sculptor who fell in love with an ivory statue he had crafted with his own hands. In answer to his prayers, the goddess Aphrodite brought it to life and united the couple in marriage. This novella remained the classical telling