"Broken Hearts" was the last of several blank verse "fairy comedies" created by Gilbert in the early 1870s starring William Hunter Kendal and his wife Madge Robertson Kendal (sister of the playwright Tom Robertson). These plays, influenced by the fairy work of James Planché, are founded upon the idea of self-revelation by characters under the influence of magic or some supernatural interference. The first was the fantasy "The Palace of Truth" in 1870. "Pygmalion and Galatea", a satire of sentimental, romantic attitudes toward myth, was produced in 1871. Together, these plays, and successors such as "The Wicked World" (1873), "Sweethearts" (1874), "Charity" and "Broken Hearts", did for Gilbert on the dramatic stage what the German Reed Entertainments had done for him on the musical stage, establishing that his capabilities extended far beyond burlesque. They won him artistic credentials as a writer of wide range, who was as comfortable with human drama as with farcical humour.