I invested in this book intending to listen to and memorize all fourteen of the Savoy operas...I now know ten of them practically from heart, which scares my friends terribly. The funny thing is that, although I intended to buy it solely so that I could sing the words to Sullivan's wonderful hummable tunes, I found myself reading the plays just for the pleasure of Gilbert's clever rymes and horribly improbable plotlines. His "Bab" illustrations are also included beside the text, which opens up another side of Gilbert's genius. But be forewarned: There are several mistakes in the text - mostly words such as "is" being replaced with "it," but also some words that are different. Perhaps the words have changed over time from the origonal texts, but once in a while you'll find a word sung differently than what's written. I treat the book like I'd treat an edition of Shakespeare - dramatic work is always bent and changed slightly. In spite of the minor textual mistakes, it is a very useful book and it's nice to have the libretto laid out without any commentary or annotations.