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
Dulcamara, or the Little Duck and the Great Quack story it has to tell, and giving fair opportunities for the display of varied comic acting. Mr. Gilbert's burlesque ... possesses all these merits, and is remarkable for the wit and brilliance of its dialogue." "Dulcamara"'s success showed that Gilbert could write entertainingly in the burlesque form and quickly led to commissions to write four additional opera burlesques (the most successful of which was "Robert the Devil" in 1868) and a half dozen pantomimes and farces. These early burlesques, full of "ingenious but excruciating" puns (traditional in burlesques of the period), show signs of the satire that would later be