Antedatings in the Yale Book of Quotations -- 12 : Happy Ever After

[Stephen Goranson]

Quoting Fred Shapiro <fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU>:

> happy ever after (OED 1853)
>
> 1849 William M. Thackeray _The History of Pendennis_

Without checking other iffy dates and snippet views, google books has earlier
for happy and happily ever after, e.g.:

1830 Narrative of a Journey Overland..., Anne Katharine Elwood, p.120

"he [....] ultimately recovers his human form, and, in fairy-tale style, lives
very happy ever after."


1828 (also in 1825 ed.?) Memoirs of the Life and Writings of Lord Byron By
George Clinton p.364

"It was not very deep: she was soon taken out, by some gondoliers who were
passing, and carried home to her husband, where--to end this romance as some
others end--she lived very happily ever after."

Stephen

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