Description:

J. H. Payne Manuscript of "Home! Sweet Home!" One of A. Lincoln's Favorite Melodies

PAYNE, JOHN HOWARD.  Autograph Manuscript Signed, “John Howard Payne”, and inscribed, “To my friend Miss Alice Stetson”, 1p, on lightly lined paper, 7.875" x 9.875", Washington, August 6, 1850. Housed in a magnificent blue leather presentation binding with gilt lettering. Accompanied by a steel engraving of Payne and an early American printing of the song. Several words are written in an unknown hand at the verso of the manuscript. Flattened folds, toning, light soiling, else near Fine condition. 

Payne pens the first two verses of his "Home! Sweet Home" (with slight variations to the printed text), in full, “Home, Home! Sweet, Sweet Home! / 'Mid pleasures & palaces though we may roam / Be it ever so humble, there’s no place like Home! / A charm from the sky seems to hallow us there / Which, seek through the world, is ne’er met with elsewhere! / An exile from Home, splendour dazzles in vain! / Oh, give me my lowly thatch’d cottage again! / -The birds singing gaily, that come at my call - / Give me them! - and the peace of mind dearer then [sic] all! / Home, home! sweet, sweet Home! / There’s no place like Home! / There’s no place like Home!” 

John Howard Payne (1791-1852) was an American actor, poet and playwright who is most famous for his song "Home! Sweet Home!", one of Abraham Lincoln's favorite melodies. A born thespian, Payne wrote his first play at age 14 and took to the stage four years later. He performed in theaters in the eastern United States before he temporarily took a break from acting to found an athenaeum. Unable to resist the footlights, he found success on the London stage beginning in 1813, and it was at that city’s famous Covent Garden in 1823 that he produced his opera Clari, Maid of Milan, making famous the song Home! Sweet Home! Almost immediately, the piece found its way into other musical compositions including Gaetano Donizetti’s opera Anna Bolena and later, Henry Wood’s Fantasia on British Sea Songs. Decades following its first appearance and ten years after Payne’s death, the song became a favorite of Civil War soldiers on both sides of the conflict. Another admirer of the sentimental song was President Abraham Lincoln for whom Adelina Patti performed at the White House in 1862. Additionally, the song has appeared in a number of films including The Wizard of Oz, Arsenic and Old Lace, Meet Me in St. Louis, and The House of Cards, a silent film from the Edison Studios, in which the lyrics appeared on the title cards while a violinist performed it on-screen.

After nearly 20 years abroad, Payne returned home to the United States where he lived among the Cherokee Indians on whose behalf he lobbied Congress and wrote books and newspaper articles in which he asserted that the natives were one of the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel. He died far from home, in Africa, while serving as the American Consul at Tunis. His remains were transferred to Washington’s Oak Hill Cemetery in 1883, nearly thirty years after his death.

Formerly in the collections of Marjorie Wiggin Prescott (1893-1980; daughter of the banker Albert Wiggin, Chairman of Chase National Bank), New Orleans property tycoon Harry Spiro and then Marshall B. Coyne proprietor of Washington, D.C.’s renowned Madison Hotel.

This item comes with a Certificate from John Reznikoff, a premier authenticator for both major 3rd party authentication services, PSA and JSA (James Spence Authentications), as well as numerous auction houses.

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