For ten years Gilbert wrote articles and poems for "Fun", of which he was also the drama critic. Gilbert's first column "cannot now be identified" (Stedman 1996, p. 11). The first "known" contribution is a drawing titled "Some mistake here" on page 56 of the issue for 26 October 1861 (Plumb 2004, p. 499). Some of Gilbert's early work for the journal remains unidentified because many pieces were unsigned. The earliest pieces that Gilbert himself considered worthy to be collected in "The Bab Ballads" started to appear in 1865, and then much more steadily from 1866 to 1869.