A Colossal Idea; an original farce

London/New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons Ltd.. Near Fine in Very Good dj. 1932. First Edition. Hardcover. [very nice copy, light wear to base of spine; jacket lightly soiled, very slight paper loss at spine ends, a few tiny closed tears]. (pen and ink drawings) A one-act trifle about a fellow with the improbable moniker of Wellington Yellowboy, whose trusting and devoted wife thinks he's working every night into the wee hours on editing the 123rd edition of the Encyclopaedia Brittanica -- but who in fact is stepping out on the town, cavorting with various young lovelies at Fancy Balls and the like. Mrs. Yellowboy's long-absent brother suddenly appears, however, and (after a suitable bit of mistaken-identity-type confusion) blows his cover. This previously-unpublished and unperformed piece, evidently found among Gilbert's papers (although the introduction doesn't specifically say so), was deduced from internal evidence to have been written sometime between 1855 and 1870 (in which year Mr. Gilbert was introduced to Mr. Sullivan). It's funny enough, in an arch-Victorian kind of way, but it probably would have benefitted from a few songs. Per the copyright page a "limited number of Copies [were] issued with hand-coloured illustrations; this, alas, is not one of that unknown number of copies, but is fairly scarce in its own right, especially with the illustrated jacket. .