The Night Before Christmas.

MOORE, Clement C.

Item Number: 122085

London: Raphael Tuck & Sons, Ltd, [1898].

First edition of Moore’s classic Christmas poem. Quarto, original illustrated boards, illustrated with 4 chromolithographs and additional illustrations throughout the text. In very good condition. An exceptional presentation.

"A Visit from St. Nicholas", or "Twas the Night Before Christmas", was first published anonymously in the Troy, New York Sentinel on December 23rd 1823, having been sent there by a friend of Moore and was reprinted frequently thereafter with no name attached. It was first attributed in print to Moore in 1837. Moore himself acknowledged authorship when he included it in his own book of poems in 1844. By then, the original publisher and at least seven others had already acknowledged his authorship. Moore had a reputation as an esteemed professor and did not wish, at first, to be connected with the unscholarly verse. He included it in the anthology at the insistence of his children, for whom he had originally written the piece.