The Night Before Christmas

Product Information

Dread” happens to be another term that Foster associates with Moore, again to convey the man’s dour temperament. “Clement Moore is big on dread,” Foster writes, “it’s his specialty: ‘holy dread,’‘secret dread,’‘need to dread,’‘dreaded shoal,’‘dread pestilence,’‘unwonted dread,’‘pleasures dread,’‘dread to look,’‘dreaded weight,’‘dreadful thought,’‘deeper dread,’‘dreadful harbingers of death,’‘dread futurity.'” Again, I’m not convinced that the frequent use of a word has terribly much significance–but Foster is convinced, and in his own terms the appearance of this word in “The Night before Christmas” (and at a key moment in its narrative) ought to constitute textual evidence of Moore’s authorship. The speaker of the poem hears the hoof-prints of reindeer “prancing and pawing” on his roof; and then, just as he’s closing his window, “Down the chimney Saint Nicholas came with a bound!” The poem takes on particular interest for the modern viewer here, as the speaker gets his first clear look at a Saint Nicholas who appears quite different from the Santa Claus of today: There are other Moore landmarks. On his Santa tours, Goldstein visits the Church of St. Luke in the Fields on Hudson Street (Moore was the first pastor); Moore’s townhouse (built in 1841) on West 22nd Street; and Clement Clarke Moore Park at West 22nd and Tenth Avenue, which had been part of Moore’s vast estate.

Crump, William D (September 4, 2013). The Christmas Encyclopedia, 3d edition. New York: McFarland & Company. p.431. ISBN 978-0786468270. A Visit from St. Nicholas" (also known as "'Twas the Night Before Christmas", 1823) attributed to Clement Clarke MooreAs the story goes, Moore wrote it as a Christmas present for his two daughters. He apparently told the New York Historical Society that a "portly, rubicund Dutchman in the neighborhood" was his model for St. Nicholas.

Revisiting 'A Visit from St. Nicholas' ". New York State Library. December 2015 . Retrieved 19 December 2020. Livingston, according to the Poetry Foundation, published "occasional and light verse in regional journals and his poems were often published anonymously or under the pseudonym R." This book cover image released by Grafton and Scratch Publishers shows a newer version of The Night Before Christmas.(Grafton and Scratch Publishers/The Associated Press) Moore's maternal grandfather was Major Thomas Clarke, an English officer who stayed in the colony after fighting in the French and Indian War. He owned the large Manhattan estate "Chelsea", then in the country north of the developed areas of the city. As a girl, Moore's mother Charity Clarke wrote letters to her English cousins. Preserved at Columbia University, these show her disdain for the policies of the British monarchy and her growing sense of patriotism in pre-Revolutionary days. Moore's grandmother Sarah Fish was a descendant of Elizabeth Fones and Joris Woolsey, one of the earlier settlers of Manhattan. [5] Moore's parents inherited the Chelsea estate, and deeded it to him in 1813. He earned great wealth by subdividing and developing it in the 19th century. [6] Sounds like someone from NY who has never seen a hurricane, possibly Clement Moore himself, possibly the one from whom some say he borrowed it.I have said it from memory to my kids and maybe one grandkid, though now whole swatches of it have washed down the drain with other hurricane detritus. The Pintard link is crucial, according to Jared Goldstein ’89CC, ’97BUS, a professional tour guide who gives walking tours highlighting New York’s contributions to the birth of Santa Claus. “Moore was present at Pintard’s 1810 St. Nicholas Day dinner, and so was Washington Irving,” Goldstein says. “That evening, Pintard spoke the words ‘Santa Claus,’ which was possibly the first time the Anglicized form of Sinterklaas was spoken in America.” At what age did you stop believing in Santa Claus? Last Christmas, I still had to buy something for my daughter and wrote “From: Santa Claus” on the gift tag because she still believed in him. She was 16. AlmaDeutscher, The Night before Christmas – music by Alma Deutscher, archived from the original on 21 December 2021 , retrieved 13 December 2018 Clement C. Moore was more famous in his own day as a professor of Oriental and Greek literature at Columbia College (now Columbia University) and at General Theological Seminary, who compiled a two volume Hebrew dictionary. He was the only son of Benjamin Moore, a president of Columbia College and bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of New York, and his wife Charity Clarke. Clement Clarke Moore was a graduate of Columbia College (1798), where he earned both his B.A. and his M.A.. He was made professor of Biblical learning in the General Theological Seminary in New York (1821), a post that he held until 1850. The ground on which the seminary now stands was his gift. [1] From 1840 to 1850, he was a board member of The New York Institution for the Blind at 34th Street and 9th Avenue (now The New York Institute for Special Education). He compiled a Hebrew and English Lexicon (1809), and published a collection of poems (1844). Upon his death in 1863 at his summer residence in Newport, Rhode Island, his funeral was held in Trinity Church, Newport, where he had owned a pew. Then his body was interred in the cemetery at St. Luke's Episcopal Church on Hudson St., in New York City. On November 29, 1899, his body was reinterred in Trinity Churchyard Cemetery in New York.

I don't think there are many people out there that aren't familiar with this poem by Clement C. Moore that was originally published in 1823. Theres a reason it's a classic and that's because it captures the magic of Christmas. We've had many versions of the book over the years but the one we read from now is beautifully illustrated by Richard Johnson, this is such a gorgeous book and I can't imagine a Christmas without it! For Moore to have written this poem, he would have to "slipped into a style that was not only atypical of his own verse but utterly typical of the very man who, according to his descendants, was the true author."Yes, there is a controversy.... The controversy is why so many people are still questioning the authenticity of something indisputably proven to be true." Le Père Martin" (1888) by Ruben Saillens and unwittingly plagiarized as " Papa Panov's Special Christmas" by Leo Tolstoy How the poem ended up at the Troy Sentinel is not exactly clear, but some claim a friend of the Moore family sent it in. This illustration released by Applesauce Press shows Santa Claus smoking a pipe from a copy of The Night Before Christmas. The book has since been updated to remove smoking references, but the authorship of the poem is still in dispute.(Applesauce Press/The Associated Press) What we know for sure