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MARCH’S FEATURED TEXT

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The "Bab" Ballads is a collection of light verse by W. S. Gilbert, and is illustrated with his own comic drawings. The Ballads contain both satire and nonsense, as well as a great deal of utter absurdity. They were read aloud at private dinner-parties, public banquets, and even in the House of Lords.

In writing the Ballads, Gilbert developed his signature "topsy-turvy" style, where the humour was derived by setting up a ridiculous premise and working out its logical consequences, however absurd. They also reveal Gilbert's cynical and satirical approach to humour. The collection became famous on its own, as well as being a source for plot elements, characters, and songs that would be recycled in the Gilbert and Sullivan operas.

OF all the ships upon the blue,
No ship contained a better crew
Than that of worthy Captain Reece,
Commanding of The Mantelpiece.

He was adored by all his men,
For worthy Captain Reece, R.N.,
Did all that lay within him to
Promote the comfort of his crew.

If ever they were dull or sad,
Their captain danced to them like mad,
Or told, to make the time pass by,
Droll legends of his infancy.

(Read on...)

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The current Community collaboration is collecting texts related to Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862) Recent collaborations: WikiProject NARA, Tenth Anniversary Contest, Disney, Domesday survey, Niccolò Machiavelli

The current Proofread of the Month has been completed. Here is a list of small works that need a little help: Index:The formative period in Colby's history.djvu 29pp. Index:MinkowskiRaumZeit 14pp. Index:Federated Australia.djvu 16pp. Recent collaborations: The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, Paper and Its Uses, The Post Office of Fifty Years Ago, Church Seats and Kneeling Boards, A Treatise on Soap-Making, True Stories of Girl Heroines, A Boys' Life of Booker T. Washington, The Boys' Life of Mark Twain, My Life and Loves, Moralia (Tr. Holland), The Mythology of the Aryan Nations, The Fauna of British India, including Ceylon and Burma (Birds Vol 1), How to Keep Bees

The current Maintenance of the Month task is Work index revision Recent collaborations: Orphans, Proposed policies and guidelines, Author page connection with Wikidata items, Help page improvement, Undated works

NEW TEXTS

Celtic migrations (1853)
 by Denis Caulfield Heron
The Nature and Elements of Poetry (1892)
 by Edmund Clarence Stedman
Our habitual criminals (1882)
 by Frederick Richard Falkiner
Haka Ka Mate Attribution Act 2014 (2014)
 by Parliament of New Zealand
The Eye of Zeitoon (1920)
 by Talbot Mundy
Effects of emigration; can it be made a means of relieving distress? (1856)
 by Thomas Jordan
The Prometheus Bound of Aeschylus (1843)
 by Aeschylus, translated by Henry David Thoreau

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