lyrics. "Ben Bolt" circulated widely in unauthorized broadside format and was selected by Rufus Wilmot Griswold for his anthology The Poets and Poetry of America. The ballad was a particular favorite of Abraham Lincoln during his lifetime. In literature "Ben Bolt" had its popularity rejuvenated in 1894 when George du Maurier published his novel Trilby, which uses the song as a plot point. The title character Trilby O'Ferrall is portrayed as incapable of skillful singing when she delivers a tone-deaf version of "Ben Bolt" near the novel's beginning. Later, the failure of Svengali's hypnotic powers is revealed when Trilby is once again incapable of singing "Ben Bolt" with any degree of skill. The success of the novel and the subsequent Trilbyana craze promoted interest in the songs of Trilby. In his old age, Thomas Dunn English contributed a manuscript copy of "Ben Bolt" to an 1895 Trilby-themed charity auction for the benefit of the New York Kindergarten Association. As a widely known song of the nineteenth century, "Ben Bolt" was popularly used as a cultural reference in books set during that era, whether published in the nineteenth century or decades later. It is quoted in the novel Dr. Sevier by George Washington Cable and by Laura Ingalls Wilder in By the Shores of Silver Lake. Leopold Bloom contemplated Ben Bolt along with other stories about long-lost loves in James Joyce's Ulysses. James Thurber illustrated "Ben Bolt" as part of a poetry illustration series for The New Yorker. The song is also referenced in the P. G. Wodehouse novel Uncle Fred in the Springtime, when Mr Pott quotes the opening verse to Lord Ickenham. In film Norma Talmadge would have the song played in order to get in character for tearful scenes. In Svengali (1931), Marian Marsh as Trilby O'Ferrall performs the song. In Gone with the Wind, Vivien Leigh as Scarlett O'Hara briefly sings several lines from "Ben Bolt." In Girls About Town, Lilyan Tashman as Marie Bailey sings several lines, complaining about having to sing such an "old-fashioned song" to make her much older boyfriend happy. In music James Bellak, Ben Bolt's Waltz (1850) Charles Grobe, [Variations on] "Ben Bolt" (1850) William Vincent Wallace, Grande fantaisie de concert sur la ballade Americaine "Ben Bolt" (1853) John Philip Sousa, "Ben Bolt" March (1888) Charles Ives, Central Park in the Dark (1906) Popular vocalists have also recorded covers of "Ben Bolt,"