FREE Kindle "Night Before Christmas" by Henry Livingston. 1 Nov till midnite PT

Besides the illustrations from my collection of old editions of the poem, the book gives a summary of the attribution conflict. If anyone feels able to review the book on Amazon, I'd be very grateful.

Mac Jackson's Statistical Results page includes links to our original data, so if you have a head for statistics and want to play, have at it and let me know if there's anything else you might want to see. My private research website with the two professors is over 10,000 pages and will only be selectively excerpted into the main Henry site because it's SO nitty-gritty. But we all agree that we want other researchers to be able to access our data.

As for making up your mind, why not read the poetry of both men and decide for yourself. Who needs academics! Personally, I think we need a book on the topic by a psychologist!

Poetry of Henry Livingston

...
Believe me, dear patrons, I have wand'red too far,
Without any compass, or planet or star;
My dear native village I scarcely can see
So I'll hie to my hive like the tempest-tost bee.
Hail home! sacred home! to my soul ever dear;
Abroad may be wonders but rapture is here.
My future ambition will never soar higher
Than the clean brushed hearth and convivial fire;
Here I lounge at my pleasure, and bask at my ease,
Full readily sooth'd, and desirous to please,
As happy myself as I happy can be,
I wish all the circle as happy as me.

But hark what a clatter! the Jolly bells ringing,
The lads and the lasses so jovially singing,
Tis New-Years they shout and then haul me along
In the midst of their merry-make Juvenile throng;
But I burst from their grasp: unforgetful of duty
To first pay obeisence to wisdom and Beauty,
My conscience and int'rest unite to command it,
And you, my kind PATRONS, deserve & demand it.
On your patience to trespass no longer I dare,
So bowing, I wish you a HAPPY NEW YEAR.

Poetry of Clement Moore

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.
Good children I always give good things in plenty;
How sad to have left your stocking quite empty:
But you are beginning so nicely to spell,
And, in going to bed, behave always so well,
That, although I too oft see the tear in your eye,
I cannot resolve to pass you quite by.
I hope, when I come here again the next year,
I shall not see even the sign of a tear.
And then, if you get back your sweet pleasant looks,
And do as you're bid, I will leave you some books,
Some toys, or perhaps what you still may like better,
And then too may write you a prettier letter.
At present, my dear, I must bid you good bye;
Now, do as you're bid; and, remember, don't cry.

Thanks, mairdie!

Wonderful illo! You’re most welcome. Those books were SUCH fun to make. I’m more a fan of art noveau than of Thomas Nast, but I love the colors and the imagination behind those images. I especially love the angel dropping candies on the sleeping children.

I already own the Kindle version from Amazon. Thanks for offering it.

JoMa

I do hope you liked it. The only way I could put together the antique editions collection was to buy books with some damage. I’ve worked in Photoshop for decades now and I was able to fix all the damages so that the illos look sparkly new. It was a labor of love and I had such great fun doing it. The terribly hard part was leaving out so many that I loved, but it was getting a little silly having just part of a phrase per picture. A lot of the others show up in the Trail Band music video of the spoken poem. A most Happy Christmas to you. Never too early.

Thank you.

Just downloaded, will go peruse!

You’re most welcome. Personally, I roll in art. Color and line just take me over.

this is awesome, I read “The Night Before Christmas” at our Children’s Holiday Party for our Fire Department - 26 year Volunteer, and I was given a hard copy of this terrific book two years ago! I love the Kindle version as it is easier to read with 30 kids around!! Thank you!!

Wasn’t this book, Shady. I came out with it Dec 2016.

I read it to a day care group like you did last year and used individual plasticized pages. The mistake I made was having the pictures on both sides because then I could NEVER keep the ordering right for subsequent readings. You’re quite right. This Kindle version would have MUCH easier to handle with the little ones.

This is the 1823 version, so when you look closely you’re going to find A LOT of differences from the version you know. Look closely at the reindeer names and TRY, it’s almost impossible, to read it using the rhythm of the punctuation!

I’m so glad you like it! I’m big into education and that’s why the collection by artist at the end.

Best, Mary

I leafed through it last night, it will be a blast to read th the Jids! I want to see if we can get our LED Projector so the kids can watch as I read! Thank you again, it is terrific!

A Non-Statistical Smoking Gun?

Before I settled down with Mac Jackson to gather data for statistical analysis of the poem, I worked with Don Foster. It was Don who recognized that the version of the poem that Moore published in 1844 was NOT based on the originally published 1823 version that you'll find in my book, but the 1830 version, MUCH CHANGED BY THE EDITOR, that the editor sent to Moore when Moore wrote asking if the editor had known who wrote the poem. Only when the man said no did Moore publish the poem under his own name. Don called that "the coast is clear" letter.

These are the differences between the original version, which you'll find in my book, and the 1830 version, which the Troy Sentinel editor created, and which Moore took almost intact.

A descendant of Moore's defended Moore against Henry's authorship in 1920 by getting a deposition from someone who heard Moore say that he wrote the poem down perfectly (explaining why no original existed) and it needed only 2 small changes when he published it in his book. And, indeed, on the editor's 1830 copy are two crossouts. Except Moore never realized the number of differences between the two versions since he probably had never kept the original one that was published in 1823 and came out of the Livingston household.

So in trying to prove Moore's claim, his descendant just opened up a large hole. Unless you believe that a nitpicking author just grabs up every correction made by one random editor, as opposed to all the changes made by all the other random editors editing it at the same time.

Massive your welcomes! You can praise them for knowing better how to spell “jerk” than the way Henry spelled it - “jirk”. Another thing they love hearing is that the names of the reindeer were the names of the horses in Henry’s stable. I love doing asides while I read and asking questions.