My book on Henry Livingston, Jr., author of "Night Before Christmas," is now Free on Amazon Kindle.

Amazon Kindle ^

[mairdie]

For 24 hours from when the promotion went live, everyone can download my 450 page, heavily illustrated book, "Henry Livingston, Jr., The Poet You Always Loved" for FREE! So glad it worked.

[mairdie]

For someone who spent their life in the computer field, I still find it amazing when something works the way it's supposed to! If SO many pages are overwhelming, enjoy the pictures. There are a lot of original documents shown, as well as masses of poetry.

From Don Foster's book in 2000, "Author Unknown":
Of all the poems and letters and magazine articles that Henry Livingston wrote during his eighty years on the planet, the earliest to survive begins with the greeting "A happy Christmas to my dear Sally Welles." "A Visit from St. Nicholas" ends with the greeting "Happy Christmas to all." One might guess that a "happy" Christmas, which today sounds quite ordinary, was as commonplace in Livingston's time as a "merry" Christmas, but the guess would be wrong. Literature Online, for example, locates the earliest "Happy Christmas" in 1823 in a little poem beginning "'Twas the night before Christmas..." A broader survey of English and American literature, from 1390 ("murie Cristes masse") through the Christmas of 1823, shows that "Merry Christmas" was commonplace and "Happy Christmas" rare. Charles Fenno Hoffman, who ascribed the poem to Moore, changed "Christmas" to "New Year" at lines 1 and 56. Other editors changed the last line of "A Visit" to read "Merry Christmas to all..." Many later editors followed suit, as if "Happy Christmas" were a mistake. But a "Happy Christmas!" sounded just fine to Henry Livingston.

[mairdie]

Mac Jackson, New Zealand emeritus professor and an absolute dear, wrote about my book:

This book celebrates the life and times of Poughkeepsie army major and land-holder Henry Livingston, Jr. (1748–1828), the true author of that classic of popular culture, “The Night Before Christmas.” Mary Van Deusen’s lively writing is enhanced by a wealth of evocative illustrations. Her research has been exceptionally thorough, and many primary documents are reproduced. Livingston’s ancestors, relatives, and descendants belong in the story, so that biography is extended into fascinating family and social history. Included are many examples of Livingston’s verse and prose. The quest to prove that he composed “The Night Before Christmas” is related in detail, and there is a clear description of the research that established the truth.

Livingston’s engaging personality shines through this account, which vividly conjures up a bygone age.

[MrEdd]

Thanks, Maddie.

[Sacajaweau]

I believe that Livingston is the true author is more conjecture than fact.

[mairdie]

We've spent years trying to base our belief in fact. From Mac.

"It must be emphasized that the most significant tests conducted here are not of lexical items whose presence or absence depends on content. They are of the frequencies of common words such as
"the," "on," "as," "at," "to," "that," "would," and "some";
locutions such as "many a" and "in vain"; and phoneme pairs comprised of the last phonetic symbol in one word and the first in the next. These elements of composition are not readily subject to imitation. Their rates of use are largely beyond a writer's conscious control. They distinguish Moore's verse from Livingston's and they classify "The Night Before Christmas" with the latter. The reasonable conclusion is that "The Night Before Christmas" was composed by Henry Livingston."

************

I've started putting up our actual data online for other statisticians to cross check.

http://www.henrylivingston.com/data/index.htm

The most significant tests involve finding a set of phonemes (the sound of words that result in tongue movements) that act as a separator between the bodies of work of Moore and Henry. When NBC is compared with the two separated bodies, it fits with Henry and NOT with Moore. This is an unconscious characteristic that neither poet could control.

There have always been scholars coming down on both sides. Vassar President Henry Noble MacCracken in 1958 and Professor Tristram Potter Coffin in 1973 came down on Henry's side. In 1977, Fleetwood came out with a First Day Cover referencing the fact that Henry's authorship had come to be accepted by scholars.

What Mac tries to do with his statistical analysis is base the attribution conflict in facts.

The latest person arguing against Mac had just come out with a new long poem of Moore's. Mac had me test it with the same tests we used and it came out with the same results. It does not use the phonemes used by NBC and by Henry.

[matchgirl]

Thank you!

[Lazamataz]

I liked Johnathon Livingston Seagull.

[Lazamataz]

I liked Johnathon Livingston Seagull.

[Sacajaweau]

Since there was no reason for Henry NOT to have claimed authorship, I have to stick with Moore.

I'm aware of this frequency examination. It still comes out inconclusive.

[mairdie]

DO DID I!!!!!!

What an absolutely great book. Thanks so much for bringing back to mind.

[mairdie]

He didn’t claim authorship because he never claimed authorship of anything. To have claimed that would have been a large discontinuity in his behavior patterns.

But there will always be two sides, and it’s good to be able to choose, as sitting on a fence can be really uncomfortable. We don’t have to be on the same side of that fence, but it’s good that we can see through it. The discussion is joy in itself. All my best.

[vladimir998]

Cool.

[mairdie]

Thank you. And I think your tag is one of the best I’ve ever seen. LOVE IT!

[Jamestown1630]

Got it! Also got ‘The Night Before Christmas’, because Santa and the reindeer flying across the moon is one of my favorite Christmas icons, and you hooked me ;-)

[mairdie]

I really hope you enjoy it. I’ve collected antique editions since I first read this obscure reference to Henry writing the poem. Because I do Photoshop, I bought up damaged copies and brought these old dinged, scratched and torn images back to life. There were so many other illos I wish I could have fit into the book, but I was limited by the physical book length. Some of those images just enrapture me.

[mairdie]

Correction on above comment. I'm getting the faintest memory that I might have taken advantage of the fact that I WASN'T space limited in the Kindle to have stuffed it with as many illos as I could. Just looked it up. There are 32 illos in the printed book, as below, and 89 illos in the Kindle version. So I DID dive into the illos and roll around in them. I do SO love art. Really hope you enjoy them both. Take a VERY close look at the reindeer name rhythm. It's completely off what we use today. It was corrected by the Troy Sentinel editor in 1830, and adopted by Moore when he published the poem as his own in 1844.

[Jamestown1630]

I know I’ll enjoy it. I love all those old pictures.

[mairdie]

I'll get around to getting the poetry book up free, too. That one is really amazing. Turn of the century postcards.