The Beggar's Opera (Penguin Classics) - Softcover

Gay, John

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0140432205 ISBN 13: 9780140432206

Publisher: Penguin Classics, 1987

Synopsis

‘Whore and rogue they call husband and wife:
All professions be-rogue one another'

The tale of Peachum, thief-taker and informer, conspiring to send the dashing and promiscuous highwayman Macheath to the gallows, became the theatrical sensation of the eighteenth century. In The Beggar’s Opera, John Gay turned conventions of Italian opera riotously upside-down, instead using traditional popular ballads and street tunes, while also indulging in political satire at the expense of the Prime Minister, Sir Robert Walpole. Gay’s highly original depiction of the thieves, informers, prostitutes and highwaymen thronging the slums and prisons of the corrupt London underworld proved brilliantly successful in exposing the dark side of a corrupt and jaded society.

Bryan Loughrey and T. O. Treadwell’s introduction examines the eighteenth-century background of musical theatre and opera, the changing cityscape of London and the corruption of the legal system. This edition also includes a note on the music in The Beggar’s Opera and suggestions for further reading.

For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

About this title

From the Back Cover:

The great lords and powerful public officials of early eighteenth-century England are represented as highwaymen and thieves in this deliciously satirical ballad opera. In addition to its burlesque of the contemporary vogue for Italian operatic styles, John Gay's 1728 masterpiece ridicules a broad spectrum of political figures and social conventions—marriage, lawyers, trade, and even Walpole, the prime minister.
Depicting crime and vice at every level of society, The Beggar's Opera offers a witty and powerful indictment of greed, hypocrisy, and corruption in all social classes. When Peachum, a receiver of stolen goods, discovers that a notorious highwayman has eloped with his daughter, the wily old villain turns informer and collects the reward money as his prospective son-in-law is hauled off to prison. Events take an increasingly absurd turn as the dashing outlaw romances the jailer's daughter and effects an escape, only to return to the shadow of the gallows for a farcical climax that parodies the sentimental tragedy of the day.

About the Author:

Born in Devon in 1685, John Gay was apprentice to a silk mercer in London for a short time but returned to his family and began to write verse. The Shepherd's Week (1714) was the first to demonstrate his ability. He became known to Alexander Pope and the Scriblerus circle then forming, and with Pope and Arbuthnot wrote the satire Three Hours after Marriage, first performed in 1717. With the income from his Poems he invested in the South Sea and lost a great deal of money, but in 1727 he published Fables, which were very popular and fifty editions of them appeared by 1800, assuring his reputation as a poet. Seeking a regular income, Gay became secreatry to the Duchess of Monmouth in 1712 and was helped by various patrons, becoming an inmate in the household of the Duke of Queensberry, whose wife was his particular champion. His real success came in 1728 with The Beggar's Opera, a political satire and a serious statement about human nature. This was followed by Polly, which was banned by Walpole and became a financial success for Gay. Gay also wrote librettos for Handel's Acis and Galatea and Achilles. A popular and genial man, Gay was always beset by financial difficulties and died in 1732. He is buried in Westminster Abbey beneath his own epitaph: "Life is a jest and all things show it, / I thought it once, and now I know it."

About this edition

• Publisher: Penguin Classics
• Publication date: 1987
• ISBN 10: 0140432205
• ISBN 13: 9780140432206
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 128
• Editor: Loughrey Bryan, Treadwell T. O.