What is to become of me? Am I destined to revolutionize the art of comic writing? Am I the man who is destined to write the burlesques and extravaganzas of the future? Are managers of theaters and editors of light literature doomed to fall prostrate at my feet in humble obeisance? Is it to me that society at large must look for amusement for the next (say) forty years?   To these questions I unhesitatingly reply, “I am! They are! It is!” – William S. Gilbert, writing as “A Trembling Beginner,” in The Art of Parody, Fun (9 Sept 1865)   In 1861, W.S. Gilbert was a 25-year-old clerk in…