The Forty Thieves, subtitled Striking Oil in Family Jars, is an 1869 Victorian burlesque that Lydia Thompson's company debuted at Niblo's Garden in New York City on February 1, 1869.

[1][2] The work was written by Henry Brougham Farnie though it was primarily a "reconstructed" version of Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves, or Harlequin and the Genii of the Arabian Nights, which played at Covent Garden in 1866, with jokes and other new material added for an 1868 Liverpool production.

The primary gimmick of the show was that women played all the main male roles, just as Thompson had done with Ixion with great success when her troupe first came over from Britain in 1868.

Ixion had played at the smaller Wood's Museum, so Thompson's move to Niblo's (which seated 3,200) for Forty Thieves demonstrated her troupe's growing popularity.

[4] After some updates to the play in April 1869, Clara Thompson appeared as Amber, and Lizzie Kelsey became the Fairy Queen.