The Maple Leaf Rag, published in Sedalia, MO, in 1899, was the first of Scott Joplin's piano pieces to be issued with his name, and his name only, listed as the composer. Original Rags of 1896 is, of course, earlier, but, according to its original title page and the records of the U.S. copyright office, it is a collaboration between Joplin and another man, and, however much diehard Joplin fans might wish it to have been otherwise, it very probably was, in fact, a collaboration. (Similarly, even today, most Joplin rags cannot be found in their original forms; they have almost always been "arranged" by somebody, for example Gunther Schuller or, in the preparation for using Joplin's music in the film The Sting, Marvin Hamlisch.) The Maple Leaf Rag was Joplin's best-known work throughout his short lifetime, and has remained among the leaders of the pack since. Joplin earned one cent for every Maple Leaf Rag sold, a publishing contract that might not sound very promising, but nevertheless managed to get him through some lean times.

The Maple Leaf Rag is in many ways the prototypical Joplin rag, and a large number of the rags he later wrote are mere imitations of it (a trap fallen into by many best-selling authors, to be sure!). It is in A flat major, filled with syncopations and bouncing left-hand accompaniment ideas, and follows a standard fixed-form dance-piece pattern: a handful of mildly contrasting ideas, the first of which operates as something of a refrain, are pitted against one another, there is a trio in an alternate key (in this case D flat major), and finally, a little coda built from a new strain of melody (just barely new, mind you) brings it home. There is throughout Maple Leaf Rag the slightest tinge of chromaticism (something found in most of Joplin's fine works), and, more vitally, an infectious tunefulness that together raise it above the ordinary, now-forgotten rag music of Joplin's contemporaries.

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