NEVIN, Ethelbert (1862-1901). Autograph musical manuscript, titled "Every Night." Signed below title ("Ethelbert Nevin"), and inscribed by Nevin's wife, Anne Paul Nevin.

2 pages, 4to, on a single sheet of 12-stave printed music paper, slightly toned, matted and framed. Comprising 18 measures representing treble, alto, and bass clefs. With the tempo marking "Allegretto" and with a few additional annotations in pencil.

Nevin's Op. 20 A Book of Songs was published in 1893, and "Every Night" (sometimes alternatively "Ev'ry Night"), was the third of 10 songs in the collection. Nevin sets to music Robert Louis Stevenson's poem "System," which was first published in A Child's Garden of Verses in 1885. The lyrics, in full: "Every night my prayers I say | And learn my lessons every day; | And every day that I am good, | I have an orange after food. | The boy that is not clean and neat, | With lots of toys and things to eat, | He is a naughty boy , I'm sure -- | Or else his dear papa is poor." The lyrics differ slightly from Stevenson's poem, most notably in the second line which reads "And eat my dinner every day" in the second line.

Inscribed verso by Ethelbert Nevin's wife, Anne Paul Nevin, to Colonel and Mrs. Schoonmaker. Col. Schoonmaker, presumably James Martinus Schoonmaker, was commissioned Colonel of the 14th Pennsylvania Cavalry in 1862, and in 1864, he was again promoted to command the First Brigade, First Cavalry Division of the Army of the Shenandoah, a position he retained through the end of the war. Schoonmaker and Nevin both hailed from the Pittsburgh area.

Property from the Collection of James and Patrice Schoonmaker, Naples, Florida