“Desiderata” - a poetic formula for happiness, a gentle urging to be at peace with God and with life - is known and loved the world over for its words of reassurance. Its message, heralded on posters and plaques hanging in homes and over desks, has comforted and inspired millions of people. Television audiences have heard it from the lips of Ali McGraw, Johnny Cash and Joan Crawford. Ann Landers´ readers have found it in her column.

It´s been printed in Readers Digest, Good Housekeeping and New Woman. and in the sixties hippies passed it out on street corners. In 1972, it was recorded as a narrative song that sold more than a million copies. It´s been recited at weddings and funerals, and just before his death, Adlai Stevenson had planned to use it as his Christmas greeting.

The wealthy, the poor, the famous and the infamous have used “Desiderata” as a guide in changing their lives for the better. Affluent attorneys attest to this. So do ex-convicts and ex-drug addicts. It has been used in drug rehabilitation programs. It has been shared in schoolrooms, in courtrooms. There is a woman on Park Avenue in New York who has it printed on her hostess apron.

Yet, in spite of the fame of “Desiderata”, few people seem to know the true story of its origins. In fact, many people think, mistakenly, that it was written in the 17th century and inscribed on a wall at St.Paul's Episcopal Church in Baltimore. How surprised they are to learn that it was actually written in 1927 by a stocky, middle-aged, Indiana attorney named Max Ehrmann.

The confusion began one Sunday in the late-fifties. The Reverend Frederick Ward Kates, then rector of St. Paul’s, liked to distribute copies of inspirational pieces to his parishioners. That particular Sunday he placed “Desiderata” in the pews; it was printed on the church’s letterhead, which contained the church’s date of founding: 1692.

It is thought, that the mimeographed copies passed from hand to hand until it landed on the desk of an editor. Seeing the date 1692, the editor assumed the piece was in the public domain, had “Desiderata” printed up, stuck the name of the church and the date underneath, and so began a massive theft of a copyrighted, contemporary work.

This created a costly and frustrating predicament for Robert L. Bell of Melrose, Massachusetts, who in 1967 acquired the copyright to “Desiderata” at great financial risk. "At the time," recalls Bell, "I was president of Bruce Humphries, a publishing company that was starving for lack of capital, which owned the publishing rights to “Desiderata” and which owed me $16.000 in back salary. I was having an incredible struggle trying to support my wife and four children, one of whom was in college.

"I owned loans against Bruce Humphries and, in a court procedure, agreed to relinquish my liens in exchange for the publishing rights to “Desiderata”. Then I took every cent I had and bought the copyright from Richmond Wight, nephew and heir to the Ehrmann works."

“Desiderata” is part of "The poems of Max Ehrmann", and may be purchased, in hardcover, at Amazon.com, illustrated by Sally Sturman. This book of inspiration has sold more than 190,000 copies. In December 1971, Les Crane's record of “Desiderata”, set to music, was #8 on the charts. It is now available, as an audio CD, through Amazon.com.