Clement Clarke Moore was born July 15th, 1779, into a wealthy New York family. In 1798 he graduated from Columbia College, first in class, and went on to live a life of leisure as a scholar and writer.
Moore served as a Professor of Oriental and Greek Literature at a theological seminary, and wrote mainly scholarly things over his lifetime. Among these were translations from the Greek, French, and Italian, and reams of neo-classical poetry. However of his many works, only this 56 line poem is still remembered.
The Night Before Christmas was written by Moore* on a chilly December afternoon, as entertainment for his six children, and published anonymously on December 23, 1823 because Moore didn’t want his name associated with something so “low-brow”. It was originally titled A Visit From St. Nick, and was eventually published with a hyphenated title (A Visit From St. Nick – The Night Before Christmas) before the first half was dropped alltogether.
Much of our modern mythology of Santa Claus is based on Moore’s poem. Because the original St. Nicholas was a Turkish bishop, most early images portray him this way. The Night Before Christmas was the first depiction of St. Nick as a jolly elf. Moore also invented, and named, the reindeer.
To enjoy this antique version of the poem with your dolls, print the pages, then match the page sets back to back as follows and glue them together:
16 & 1 with 2 & 15
14 & 3 with 4 & 13
12 & 5 with 6 & 11
10 & 7 with 8 & 9
I think the order for stapling them together at the center will be self explanatory once you’ve done the gluing, and then all your dolls can gather together for an evening of stories by the fireplace.
*There’s still some doubt as to whether Moore wrote the poem. Henry Livingston Jr., a relative of Moore, has also been proposed as a possible author.
