Twenty-four Venetian maidens have roses ready for two gondoliers—and the men propose to choose their brides blindfolded. Their idea of impartial Fate has a few loopholes. That is the lively opening of The Gondoliers, one of the comic operas in this collection of Gilbert and Sullivan’s plays. In sunlit Venice, Marco and Giuseppe are courted by a chorus of hopeful maidens, while the young men turn a wedding choice into a game of blind-man’s buff. Then a faded but magnificently self-important Spanish duke arrives, expecting the respect due his rank—and bringing a sharper edge to the frolic. Across these songs, quick-fire exchanges and absurdly grand entrances, love and social standing are never far apart. What can possibly happen when gondolier life meets aristocratic expectation? With centuries of literature, it's inevitable that some will fall through the cracks. We hunt down public domain works and restore them so they're not lost to the world. Who are we? We're Cairn Press. Our background is in design, publishing, typography, and technology. These skills fuel our mission to create the highest quality Public Domain eBooks available online, at an affordable price. We give them the treatment they deserve; our proprietary process restores books for a better overall user experience in design, readability, and e-reader compatibility.
