Benford, Harry
The Gilbert & Sullivan Lexicon,
3rd Revised Edition, 1999
ISBN 0-9667916-1-4
[$25.95 plus $2.50 shipping and handling (US)]

The following review by Marc Shepherd was posted on SavoyNet, an unmoderated internet discussion forum dedicated to Gilbert and Sullivan, of which he is Listowner and also a frequent contributor. He also maintains the Gilbert and Sullivan Discography on the web. Marc has known Harry Benford for over twenty years. They first met when Marc was President of the University of Michigan Gilbert and Sullivan Society, where Benford was a faculty advisor.

Review by Marc Shepherd

I returned home last night to find the 3rd Edition of Harry Benford's "The Gilbert and Sullivan Lexicon" awaiting me. I fell in love with this book when I bought the 1st Edition in 1978. By 1991, Harry and I were on close enough terms that he gave me the opportunity to comment on a pre-publication draft of the 2nd Edition, as well as on some 50 new or substantially revised items added to the 3rd. I cannot claim to be entirely impartial.

Nevertheless, the success of this book over the last two decades speaks for itself. How many G&S books can you think of, aside from those by Gilbert himself, that have had a substantive third edition? It would not be a long list. It speaks to the book's popularity that Harry printed what he thought were enough copies of the 2nd Edition to last a decade, but he ran out in just four years. Lucky for all of us, Harry did not rest on his laurels, and he has put out a 3rd Edition that improves on the first two.

In case you have not seen Harry's book in either of its first two incarnations, it is a detailed reference book of terms from the operas that modern readers might find obscure. There is a chapter for each opera. Within each opera, the terms are listed in the order that they are found in the libretto. COX AND BOX and THE ZOO are tacked on the end. There is an index, in case you are curious about a specific term but cannot recall where in the canon it is mentioned. There is a pronunciation guide for words where this is not obvious. In most cases, the phrase in which the term appears in the opera is shown in brackets, although the book isn't consistent about this.

The Lexicon is not merely a "dictionary." In the discussion of the "Empress Josephine," for example (PATIENCE, p. 74), it might be be sufficient to note that she was the first wife of Napoleon Bonaparte. But, why does Gilbert bother to mention her? In the 2nd Edition, the answer to this question troubled Benford for eight lines; in the 3rd Edition, it is now twenty-nine lines.

In the discussion of "Thessalian" (THESPIS, p. 11), the 2nd Edition mentioned that it pertained to Thessaly, a region of Greece, and Benford thought that Gilbert chose it because it goes well with "Theatres." In the 3rd, he now notes that the word means "treacherous," and that there really is/was a theatre in that place.

A bit of searching found at least one definition that has been shortened: "Asinorum pons" (UTOPIA LIMITED, p. 194). Such an example was not easy to find, so there must not be very many cases where this was done. A comparison of the two did not reveal a clear reason why Harry decided to tell us less about this term, although what remains is clearly more than adequate.

As was the case in the 2nd Edition, the book is liberally festooned with Benford's own drawings. Some of them illustrate the defined terms; others are there simply because they are amusing. The chapter on THE MIKADO, for example, sports Benford illustrations of a "buffer" and a "finger stall." But, pictures of Nanki-Poo dancing merrily with a second trombone, and of a singularly ugly woman captioned "an acquired taste," seem to be just comic relief. The picture of a "Marine Parade," by the way, is much more attractively reproduced than in the 2nd Edition, and now has a much-needed caption (p. 117 in either edition).

The definitions are calibrated to the American reader, so there are some terms defined, such as "tuppence," that would be obvious to just about any British reader. But, Benford certainly does not shirk from defining the many Gilbertian terms that would be obscure to just about anybody. Benford is not the first author who has written a G&S Dictionary, but I believe it is universally acknowledged that no one else has done it as well.

It is difficult immediately to tell what has been added. The two books are roughly the same size, and the total number of pages per opera is within a page or two of the 2nd Edition. However, there is a bit more writing per page, which is how the additional material has been squeezed in. One thing immediately apparent is that the quality of the typography has improved, and the book is now in hardcover; this is particularly welcome for a book that one surely will dip into countless times over a period of many years.

One indication of the amount of added material, is the fact that the number of cited references has ballooned from 208 to 326. The Introduction to the 2nd Edition said that "nearly twenty-five hundred" words and phrases were covered. The new Introduction says that it is "some twenty-six hundred."

To give an idea of what has been changed/added, I thought it would be worthwhile to do a detailed tally for the shortest G&S opera, TRIAL BY JURY:

-- The following terms are newly added: Defendant, Plaintiff, Damages, Pleadings, Rover, Cad, Collar, Third-class journeys, Mob, Posies, Substantial Damages, Submission, Attorneys, Shelf, Snob

-- The following terms have expanded/improved definitions: Usher, Associate, Barrister, Edwin/Angelina, Subpoena, Court of the Exchequer, Pecker, Tink-a-tank, Pluck, Middlesex Sessions, Gurneys, Incubus, Fudge, Passing fair, Camberwell, Peckham, Otto, Perjured, Tether. (I saw a number of others that have been reworded for clarity without adding any new information; I didn't include them in this list.)

So, why did these terms need revising? There's a wide variety of reasons. The definition of "Barrister," for example, had simply become obsolete, due to a change in the British legal system that took effect in 1990. For "perjured," the 2nd Edition advised us that the word refers to telling a lie. For the 3rd, Benford adds that a "perjured lover" is, hence, an unfaithful lover.

The change to "pecker" is somewhat unusual. Benford replaces a number of disparate references with a single reference to a letter that Queen Victoria wrote to one of her daughters, and drops the 2nd Edition's mention of Gilbert's use of the word in one of the Bab Ballads. In this case, the purpose of the revision is not so clear.

The expanded discussion of the names Edwin and Angelina is an excellent example of why the book is so useful. The casual reader would not, perhaps, think that these names need any explanation at all--they are just the given names of two characters. But, Gilbert chose them for a purpose. The 2nd Edition noted that this was a traditional pairing of lovers' names, dating back to a 1764 poem by Oliver Goldsmith. The 3rd Edition adds the name of the poem: "The Hermit, or Edwin and Angelina."

Spot-checking suggested that the revision of the other operas is just as far-reaching. I also note that cross-references to other chapters are now much more thorough. The wealth of background added to terms defined in the previous editions is most gratifying. I always felt that Benford was fearful of telling us too much, and some of the definitions still show signs of this. But, he seems to have finally decided that readers generally want to know more, not less.

One thing that certainly *has not* changed is the book's sense of fun. Even the most difficult definitions are written in an informal style and never come across as pedantic lectures. At the same time, Benford "justly claim[s] that what follows is a scholarly exposition." He adds: "My background studies have been exhaustive, I have subjected my manuscripts to the scrutiny of real experts in the Gilbert and Sullivan world, and I have carefully cited my many sources of information." It is a model from which we can all learn.

As in the first two editions, there are major illustrations throughout by former D'Oyly Carte principal tenor Geoffrey Shovelton. The new cover illustration shows Gilbert writing some verses, while Sullivan sits at his side reading a copy of Benford's 2nd Edition (whose cover Shovelton *also* did). There is a new foreword by Kenneth Sandford, replacing the old (and largely irrelevant) one by Isaac Asimov. Sandford himself is introduced by Roberta Morrell.

-- Marc Shepherd
Home: oakapple@cris.com
Work: marc.shepherd@ssmb.com

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