Emma Marcy Raymond (pseudonym, Salvator Sylvain; 1839–1913) was an American musician, composer, and author of operetta, songs and piano music. She was one of very few women in her day who had composed the entire music of an opera and lived to see it produced. Early life and education Emma P. Marcy was born in 1839 in Hartford, Connecticut, the oldest daughter of Dr. Erastus Egerton Marcy (1815–1900) and Emeline Babcock Kilbourn Marcy (1818-1904), whose father was Henry Kilbourn of Hartford. Her father was a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania and later a homeopathic specialist, who apparently lived for many years on Fifth Avenue on the site opposite Tiffany's. In 1850, he published a book called The Homeopathic Theory and Practice of Medicine. Her sister, Nina Marcy (1854-1910), married a lawyer, Ernest G. Stedman. Her uncle was General Randolph D. Marcy, an 1832 graduate of West Point. She was a cousin to Mrs George B. McClennan, presumably Ellen Mary Marcy (1836–1915), the wife of General George Brinton McClellan (1826–1885), the father of the New York mayor of the same name (1865–1940). She showed a remarkable aptitude for music at a very early age, having composed her first song before six years of age. She inherited her musical talents from her parents, both of whom were gifted amateurs. She was reared in an atmosphere of music, and had the advantage of studying under the best teachers who visited the United States. She studied the piano with Louis Moreau Gottschalk and Raccoman, vocal music with Giorgio Ronconi, and counterpoint and harmony with the best German masters. Career Her musical sympathies were almost entirely with the Italian and French schools. Being a firm believer in the gift of free and spontaneous melody, she believed that, where human emotions were to be portrayed in music, the proper means to use in such portrayal was the human voice, and she left to the instruments the task of accompanying. She became known for her musical talent being credited as being one of the first American women to compose an operetta: in 1889 she composed the successful Doretta. She produced another in Chicago called The Sheik. Her songs and piano pieces were published in France and Germany as well as in the U.S. Amongst her songs were "O Salutaris", "Bird of Love", and "First Love". She was the author of Spanish Bolero in E Flat; Ave