Arthur Sullivan (1842-1900) was Victorian Britain's most celebrated and popular composer, whose music still to this day reaches a wider audience than any of his contemporaries. Yet the comic operas on which Sullivan's reputation is chiefly based have been consistently belittled or ignored by the British musicological establishment, while his serious works have until recently remained virtually unknown. The time is thus long overdue for serious scholarly reengagement with Sullivan. Building on over a decade of research, Benedict Taylor offers a new appraisal of the music of this most famous...