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
Pygmalion and Galatea (play) and his wife Madge Robertson Kendal (sister of the playwright Tom Robertson), in the early 1870s. These plays, influenced by the fairy work of James Planché, are founded upon the idea of self-revelation by characters under the influence of some magic or some supernatural interference. The first was "The Palace of Truth" in 1870, a fantasy adapted from a story by Madame de Genlis. "Pygmalion and Galatea", a satire of sentimental, romantic attitudes toward myth, was one of seven plays that Gilbert produced in 1871. Together, these plays, and successors such as "The Wicked World" (1873), "Sweethearts" (1874), "Charity" (1874),