We Three Kings of Orient

We Three Kings of Orient are (NOBC 99) was written in 1857 (words and music) by the American John Henry Hopkins Jr. He was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in 1820 but spent many years in New York city where his varied talents as a journalist, book illustrator and designer of stained glass were combined with his teaching at the General Theological Seminary in Manhattan. Hopkins, a bachelor, is reputed to have composed the carol as part of a Christmas pageant devised for his nephews and nieces. It was not published until 1863 in his Carols, Hymns and Songs (New York: Church Book Depository). Hopkins died in New York in 1891. His story of the Magi has, of course, been much parodied by schoolboys over the years.