“He thought of the many dear boys already gone over to the unseen shore …”
Category: tragedy
Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852-1859?)
“Euclid… is no child for effecting social revolutions, but an impassioned song may set a world in conflagration.” ~ The London Times (3 September 1852)
Nelly Gray (Hanby, 1856)
Benjamin Hanby wrote Nelly Gray in 1856, in response to a fugitive slave case …
Home, Sweet Home (Bishop & Payne, 1823)
John Howard Payne’s lyrics, from the 1823 opera, “Clari, Maid of Milan”, described as “a jewel, cut and set with perfect art”:
Mary Blane (1840s)
The lost-love minstrel tune “Mary Blane” was one of the most popular songs of the early minstrel era (see Mahar’s list):
The Hardtacks 