May Fortescue company. She toured with her company for many years, frequently performing the plays of W. S. Gilbert. A tour of the United States from 1886 to 1887 included the New York premiere of Gilbert's play "Gretchen", with Fortescue in the title role (although "The New York Times" found her performance wanting). During these touring years, she revived at least eight other works by Gilbert, playing such roles as Jenny Northcott in "Sweethearts", Galatea in "Pygmalion and Galatea", Selene in "The Wicked World" and Clarice in "Comedy and Tragedy". Fortescue's troupe premiered Gilbert's 1897 drama, "The Fortune Hunter", in which she
The Wicked World Mall Gazette", which had called "The Wicked World" indecent because of the references to "mortal love" in the script. Gilbert lost the case, but he had the satisfaction of having his play found inoffensive in a court of law. Like a number of Gilbert's blank-verse plays, "The Wicked World" treats the subject of the consequences that ensue when an all-female world is disrupted by men, and the romantic complications they bring. His plays "The Princess" (1870) and "Broken Hearts" (1875), and his operas "Iolanthe" (1882) and "Princess Ida" (1884), are all treatments of this basic idea. Stedman calls this a