Since 1844 Clement Clarke Moore has been credited as the author of the famous Christmas poem, “The Night Before Christmas,” when he included it in his book of poems, but the author of this poem might be a gentleman named Major Henry Livingston, Jr.
The story about the search for the true author of the poem is a fascinating and controversial one. The ancestors of the late Henry Livingston have been claiming for decades that their relative had penned the poem, and they have been trying to prove it. Mary Van Deusen, who is a 5th great-granddaughter of Livingston, was searching for information about her father, when she stumbled up on information about Livingston and the ongoing attempts by his descendants to have him recognized as the true author of the Christmas poem.
Mary Van Deusen enlisted the aid of Don Foster, an English professor and literary detective, who ferreted out the authorship of Primary Colors. Foster’s detective work forced Joe Klein to admit that he wrote Primary Colors.
Van Deusen and Foster have discovered a number of supports for the claim that Livingston authored the Christmas poem. Some supporting evidence involves the other writings of the two men. Clement Moore’s works are didactic, moralizing pieces, but Livingston’s are similar in tone and style to the famous Christmas poem. The following lines from a Christmas poem titled "From Saint Nicholas" penned by Moore show an example of his mindset, which consistently produced poem after poem of a similar nature:
What! My sweet little Sis, in bed all alone;
No light in your room! And your nursy too gone!
And you, like a good child, are quietly lying,
While some naughty ones would be fretting or crying?
Well, for this you must have something pretty, my dear;
And, I hope, will deserve a reward too next year.
But, speaking of crying, I'm sorry to say
Your screeches and screams, so loud ev'ry day,
Were near driving me and my goodies away.
Moore’s personality was that of a strict, stern disciplinarian; he was a biblical scholar who disdained most forms of entertainment, and in most of his writings he depicts God as a harsh rule-maker. For this reason, among many, it becomes difficult to believe that Moore wrote the fun-filled poem that shaped our perception of Santa Claus as a jolly old elf, whose belly shook like a bowl full of jelly. For another look at Santa Claus through Moore's eyes, check out his “Old Santeclaus.”
One would not expect such a religious man as Moore to claim he had written a poem that he had not. It is not clear how he obtained a copy of the poem, but after he read it at a gathering of family and friends, a friend, without his knowledge submitted it to a newspaper, and that’s when the fame of the poem started. The poem appeared a number of times in newspapers between 1823 and 1844, when Moore finally put his name to it in a book of his poems. It is thought that he had copied out the poem and made changes in it so many times over the course of those two decades, that he came to think of the poem as his own creation.
But there is evidence that he called one of the newspaper’s editors to find out if anyone had claimed authorship, before he included it in his book. That act seems to confirm that he did, in fact, know someone else was the true author.
Attributions are starting to change as a result of Foster's and Van Deusen's efforts; University of Toronto online library attributes the poem to Livingston, along with an explanation about Foster’s findings.
For a detailed history of this controversy, please visit Major Henry Livingston.
For a counter argument by Stephen Nissenbaum, please visit "There Arose Such a Clatter: Who Really Wrote 'The Night before Christmas'? (And Why Does It Matter?)"
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Books by Linda Sue Grimes:
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Singing in the Silence: Poems of Faith
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Jiggery Jee's Eden Valley Stories
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