Handsome Harry, or The deceitful young man. Shewing how a sailor courted a fair maiden, named Ruth, and having got her with child, he went to sea and left her; and how her ghost appeared to him, &c.

Another female ghost story (see Margaret’s Ghost), this broadside contains the folk tale of the profligate sailor who is brought down by the ghost of one of his conquests. It opens with a prose introduction. One passage recounts a conversation between the captain of Harry’s ship and the ghost, in which the captain at first lies about Harry’s presence on board. When the ghost threatens to sink the ship, the captain produces Harry. This passage and the title “Handsome Harry” suggest that Harry has endeared himself to the captain as well as the girls he has left on shore.

The text traveled widely and appears under other titles, including “Man and Two Maidens” and “Sailor and the Ghost.” G. Malcolm Laws Jr. notes that the Thomas version names the two jilted girls (Ruth and Kate) and apparently was reworked from “The Sailor’s Tragedy,” with seven additional stanzas (Laws 266; Roud #568; Ford, “Broadsides” #3146-50). This American version also appeared in the Forget Me Not Songster (1835) (133-36). A version collected in North Carolina ends with Ruth’s suicide note while Betsy Gaylord’s version includes several verses that are not in the Thomas broadside (Belden and Hudson 2:250; Gaylord 54-58).