Foggerty's Fairy and Other Tales

Foggerty's Fairy and Other Tales is an 1890 book by W. S. Gilbert, collecting several of the short stories and essays he wrote in his early career as a magazine writer (before 1874).

A series of alternate histories of a somewhat roguish fellow, Freddy Foggerty, who is attempting to escape the consequences of having deserted the army some years previously.

Unfortunately, though in the main timeline he has overcome his chequered past and become a respectable shop owner, in the alternate histories he turns out to have become a slave ship captain, a banker about to be arrested for fraud, and so on.

Eventually, he returns to the original timeline: it turns out the sergeant hadn't recognised him, and everything ends happily.

The gnome has the power to turn temporarily into a handsome man three times, but rapidly returns to his ugliness.

She casts spells on a series of people to make them behave contrary to their usual natures, with comic consequences.

Angela: An Inverted Love Story — First published in The Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News, Christmas Number 1887.

The plot of the story is roughly similar to that of the play, although told in a stream-of-consciousness style, with Gilbert wondering what to write, describing how he named characters, and so on.

A Tale of a Dry Plate — First published in The Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News, Christmas Number, 1885.

The Burglar's Story — First published in Holly Leaves (Christmas number of The Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News), 8 December 1883.