This sheet music was published in 1857 in The Musical Bouquet, a series of affordable piano music published weekly as individual pieces, and every six months as bound volumes. William Strange (1801-1871) and James Bingley started publishing The Musical Bouquet from the office in 192 High Holborn in January 1845, with their illustrator Alfred Ashley (1820-1897) and their editor Francis Lancelott, probably inspired by G.H. Davidson's similar publication The Musical Treasury launched in 1844. Bingley had previously collaborated with Ashley in 1843-1844 to publish the two-volume Bingley's Select Vocalist, an eclectic collection of songs, glees and duets engraved by Bingley from drawings by Ashley. In the hands of Strange and Davidson the pieces published by The Musical Bouquet were largely pirated from other publishers. Strange sold his publishing business to his son William Strange Junior on 18th February 1849, but after that date Charles Sheard Senior is associated with The Musical Bouquet. He soon became its proprietor, increased its production to two pieces a week, and by its height of popularity in the 1860s, to eight copies a week. On his death in 1873 his son Charles Sheard Junior took control of the firm as senior partner and The Musical Bouquet continued until 1898, after which Charles Sheard Junior continued publishing music sheets from 192 High Holborn.

Minstrel shows were very popular in London from the 1840s onwards, notably in St. James's Hall in Piccadilly where they were considered family entertainment. Minstrels sang sentimental ballads and played instruments including the banjo, tambourine, one-stringed fiddle and the bones. Christy's Minstrels was a blackface minstrel group which was started by Edwin Pearce Christy. Stephen Collins Foster (1826 – 1864), known as "the father of American music", was an American songwriter primarily known for his parlour and minstrel music