In 1936, The Saturday Evening Post published Stephen Vincent Benét's short story The Devil and Daniel Webster; it would become Benét's most popular story. Throughout 1936 and 1937 Benét and Douglas S. Moore collaborated on an opera, based on Benét's story, that was to carry the same name. Moore's opera was first performed on May 18, 1939, in New York by the American Lyric Theater Company at the Martin Beck Theater. Moore scored the work for either a large orchestra, with paired woodwinds or for a smaller group with single winds. This option has contributed to its frequent performance.

In a 1953 interview, Moore said, "Mr. Benét and I have classified The Devil and Daniel Webster as a folk opera because it is legendary in its subject matter and simple in its musical expression." Whether one classifies the work as an opera, a folk opera, or a musical, it is an unusual piece. In one act, it has no overture, and much of the spoken dialogue is accompanied in the manner of a melodrama. There are no traditional set pieces, but contrasting sections result when, in highly emotional moments, the creators employ verse and appropriate music to set it. Throughout, the voice parts dominate the texture, making for very clear text declamation. The Devil's strident fiddle playing in "Young William was a thriving boy" is clearly influenced by Stravinsky's L'histoire du soldat.

Moore emphasized local color and thus the folk flavor of the opera by including such traditional American music as a country square dance and ballads. The local sense is reinforced by placing the scenario in a specific city and time: Cross Corners, New Hampshire, in the 1840s.

Benét's libretto revolves around the ancient story of a person who sold his soul to the Devil. In this case, that person is Jabez Stone, who at the opening of the piece is at his wedding reception. Daniel Webster, the Secretary of State, arrives, as does a stranger named Mr. Scratch. From a box Mr. Scratch brings with him escapes a moth that pleads for help because he, like Jabez, has sold his soul to the Devil. Jabez admits that he sold his soul when he was impoverished and saw no other way to survive. When Webster calls for a trial, Scratch assembles a jury from hell, hoping he will win. A passionate, clever speech from Webster, however, persuades the jury and Jabez reclaims his soul.

A critic for The Saturday Review noted that The Devil and Daniel Webster "does not, either in whole or in part, remind us of any European composer." This stems, at least in part, from Moore and Benét's choice to use what Benét described as "casual, everyday speech." More importantly, Moore set out to provide an accurate setting of the prosody of colloquial speech, thereby making both the language and the music idiomatic and purely American.

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