"Juanita" was number two of a six song collection entitled Songs of Affection published December 1853 by Chappell & Co. and composed by noted Victorian society figure and social reformer Caroline Norton.

[1] Juanita was the first ballad by a woman composer to achieve massive sales,[2] and its original setting (for a soprano) has been seen to be subtly subversive of gender roles (as the woman singing the song is taking the part of the wooing lover),[3] a topic of some significance to Mrs. Norton.

As composing was seen as a masculine occupation, it was typical to borrow or adapt the melodies.

Early successes were by Frank C. Stanley (1905) and by Emilio de Gogorza in 1919.

A crowd of picnickers sings the song, near the 41-minute mark, in the 1955 film Picnic.