Clement C. Moore

A Visit from St. Nicholas / Illustrated from Drawings by F. O. C. Darley
via The Library of Congress

Below are links to posts on Melvilliana related to the scholar, seminary professor, and poet Clement C. Moore, best known as the author of "A Visit from St. Nicholas" (1823) or "The Night Before Christmas."

A VISIT FROM ST. NICHOLAS

• Chilton manuscript of A Visit from St. Nicholas
  https://melvilliana.blogspot.com/2019/12/chilton-manuscript-of-visit-from-st.html

• First printing in Troy Sentinel
  https://melvilliana.blogspot.com/2019/04/first-printing-of-visit-from-st-nicholas.html

• 1824 reprinting in the Geneva Palladium

• More testimony from Orville L. Holley

• Francis P. Lee in 1833 on Moore's authorship

• Clement C. Moore's published letter on his authorship

• National Intelligencer requested to correct mistaken attribution

• Dunder-Donder, Blixem-Blixum, Dunder Mifflin etc.

Christmas Carol. The visit of Saint Nicholas. Written by Prof.C. C. Moore.
John M. Wolff, stationer - Philadelphia via The Library of Congress

CLEMENT C. MOORE'S AUTHORSHIP OF "A VISIT FROM ST. NICHOLAS" AKA "'TWAS THE NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS"

• Santa Claus in the Morristown NJ Court-house
  https://melvilliana.blogspot.com/2025/02/santa-claus-in-morristown-new-jersey.html

• Champ prevails! "Experts" foiled, Truth wins in a knockout
  My review in December 2023 of Tom Jerman's book THE FIGHT FOR "THE NIGHT"
  https://melvilliana.blogspot.com/2023/12/champ-prevails-experts-foiled-truth.html 

• Pre-1844 attributions to Clement C. Moore
  https://melvilliana.blogspot.com/2018/08/pre-1844-attributions-of-visit-from-st.html

• How we know that Clement C. Moore wrote The Night Before Christmas http://melvilliana.blogspot.com/2017/05/how-we-know-that-clement-c-moore-wrote.html

• Clement C. Moore's published letter on his authorship
  http://melvilliana.blogspot.com/2017/01/clement-c-moores-published-letter-on.html
  

• National Intelligencer requested to correct mistaken attribution

• Key witness letter by Livingston cousin and genuine antiquarian  http://melvilliana.blogspot.com/2018/02/key-witness-letter-by-livingston-cousin.html

• Livingston cousin T. W. C. Moore
  https://melvilliana.blogspot.com/2018/12/livingston-cousin-t-w-c-moore.html 

• T. W. C. Moore in 1822

• Number 18

• Joe Nickell cited by Emily Kingery 

• Milton Halsey Thomas 

• Settle your brains

• Two Homeric similes

• Happy Christmas

• Trigrams that count 

• Eight great favorite expressions
  https://melvilliana.blogspot.com/2017/04/eight-great-favorite-expressions-of.html 

• Commonplace rhymes in A Burlesque Translation of Homer and elsewhere

OTHER POEMS BY CLEMENT C. MOORE

•  Lines written after a snow-storm, 1824 and 1844 versions
  https://melvilliana.blogspot.com/2019/04/lines-written-after-snow-storm-by.html 

• Biography of the heart of Clement C. Moore 
• https://melvilliana.blogspot.com/2017/01/biography-of-heart-of-clement-c-moore.html

•  Two poems by Clement C. Moore in the New York Evening Post--first printing of Moore's Congratulatory "Lines Written after a Season of Yellow Fever" and "Lines Addressed to the Fashionable Part of My Young Countrywomen."

• Petrosa in the NY Evening Post

• Moore's "To a Lady" in the Portfolio

• Clement C. Moore's Prometheus

• Moore's snow poem first published in the Troy Sentinel on February 20, 1824 http://melvilliana.blogspot.com/2017/02/clement-c-moores-snow-poem-in-troy.html

•  Lines written after a snow-storm - reprinted in 1824 from the Troy Sentinel

• Moore's To the Sisters of Charity    

• The Pig and the Rooster
  http://melvilliana.blogspot.com/2018/07/the-pig-and-rooster.html

TEACHING HEBREW 

• Full text, Moore's 1825 Lecture Introductory to the Course of Hebrew Instruction
  https://melvilliana.blogspot.com/2025/01/a-lecture-introductory-to-course-of.html 

• Early praise for Clement C. Moore's 1825 lecture on the Hebrew Bible
  https://melvilliana.blogspot.com/2024/11/early-praise-for-clement-c-moores-1825.html

• Clement C. Moore on Hebrew poetry and the Bible
  https://melvilliana.blogspot.com/2017/03/clement-c-moore-on-hebrew-poetry-and.html

• Flash of expression
  https://melvilliana.blogspot.com/2019/08/flash-of-expression.html

NOT BY CLEMENT C. MOORE

• Moore Disclaimed authorship of charity hymn Lord of life all praise excelling
• Lord of life, all praise excelling - words by Samuel Birch
• Moore declines to help revise metrical Psalms

BIOGRAPHY

• That ripe scholar and rare man

• Biography of the heart of Clement C. Moore

• My Reasons for Loving
  poem by Moore's wife Catherine Elizabeth Taylor 

• Obit by Frank W. Ballard 

• New York Herald obit of Clement C. Moore

• Church Journal obit

• Clement C. Moore on wine in the Bible

• Sarah Sackett, Clement C. Moore and the Greek Fund

• Clement C. Moore on Hebrew Poetry and the Bible

•  I cannot pretend to judge of their piety - Moore's reply to inquisitors

•  Inscribed copies of Moore's 1844 Poems

• Samuel Turner's 1850 dedication

• Henry T. Tuckerman remembers the smiling face of dear old Clement Moore

•  William Alfred Jones's dedication to Clement C. Moore

•  Moore "one of the best of men" according to Evert A. Duyckinck

•  Dr. Francis and Clement C. Moore

•  Sophia Hawthorne and St Nicolas to Una, 1852
  As one parent's letter to her daughter on New Year's Eve, comparable to the "Letter from Saint Nicholas" that Moore wrote for his daughter.

• What Clement C. Moore taught in 1823, and how 

• Eheu! professor
  Wondering what John Pintard wrote privately about Moore in 1821. And what did he mean? 

• Moore declines to help revise metrical Psalms

•  Pat Pflieger, Clement Clarke Moore and A Visit from St. Nicholas

LITERARY CRITICISM

• Review of Clement C. Moore's 1844 Poems in the Churchman

• Nonsense, trash, nursery rhymes: Laughton Osborn on The Night Before Christmas 

• 199th edition of The Night Before Christmas, in 1842

• New York Review on the poetry of Clement C. Moore

• High praise for Moore's Poems in the Literary World - review by William Alfred Jones

• Notice of Moore's Poems in The Church Review

• Melville's Santa Claus

• Ruth K. MacDonald on Moore's high style and influences

DON FOSTER

• I cannot pretend to judge of their piety - Moore's reply to inquisitors
  Honorable, dignified, and pro-student.

• Cleaning up after Don Foster

• A Dutch Quarrel 

• Dunder-Donder, Blixem-Blixum, Dunder Mifflin etc.

MACDONALD P. JACKSON

•  Number 18

• Improbable typos and poetic justice

• Computer error, please try again

• Response by MacDonald P. Jackson

• Recommended fixes for Jackson's flawed methodology

• Jackson on Norsworthy on The Night Before Christmas 

• Cadillacs and ragged Fords

•  How we know that Clement C. Moore wrote The Night Before Christmas

• Dunder-Donder, Blixem-Blixum, Dunder Mifflin etc.

• Alias nasal twistification

• A Dutch Quarrel

• Progress Report 

• Two Homeric similes

• Happy Christmas

• Trigrams that count

• Eight great favorite expressions 

• Commonplace rhymes

EDITIONS

• 1837 New-York Book of Poetry

• 1844 Poems by Clement C. Moore

• Clement Clarke Moore - Online Books Page

OTHER RESOURCES

• Unpublished poems by Clement C. Moore in manuscript
  --heroically transcribed and beautifully presented by Mary S. Van Deusen  

• Clement Clarke Moore and Santa in the City --excellent article by Emily Chapin on the Museum of the City of New York website. Great illustrations, too, including first-rate manuscript images.

• Clarence Cook on The Author of A Visit from St Nicholas
  The Century Magazine - December 1897

• Charles W. Jones on the Knickerbocker Santa Claus via St. Nicholas Center

• Pat Pflieger, Clement Clarke Moore and A Visit from St. Nicholas

• Nancy H. Marshall - Nineteenth Century Publication Milestones

• The Authorship of The Night Before Christmas - Seth Kaller Inc

• Common-place: There Arose Such a Clatter - 2001 article by Stephen Nissenbaum
  https://commonplace.online/article/there-arose-such-a-clatter

•  Niels H. Sonne - "The Night Before Christmas": Who Wrote It? 

• Biography of Clement Clarke Moore by Samuel White Patterson, courtesy of Hathi Trust Digital Library