Books and Manuscripts

“Twas the night before Christmas…”

Moore, Clement C.
Poems
New York: Bartlett & Welford, 1844. First edition. 8vo. 216 pp. Presentation copy, inscribed by Moore on half-title to the Rev. Dr. Samuel Farmar Jarvis: “The Rev. Dr. Jarvis, / With the respects / of the author.” Contemporary three-quarter brown calf over marbled paper-covered boards, stamped in blind; orange morocco spine label, stamped in gilt, left half chipped away; boards, joints and extremities rubbed; upper portion of spine starting; chip in head of same; speckled edges; brown endpapers; scattered soiling to text; residue on rear free endpapers; small bookseller's ticket at bottom of rear paste-down. BAL 14348; Grolier, American 52

Presentation copy of Clement C. Moore’s collected poetry, the first edition of any of his works to include his celebrated "A Visit from St. Nicholas", more commonly known as “The Night Before Christmas.” This copy inscribed by Moore for Episcopal clergyman the Rev. Dr. Samuel Farmar Jarvis. Jarvis, born in 1786 in Middletown, Connecticut, was the first historiographer of the Episcopal Church. He served at St. Michael’s Church in Bloomingdale, New York, (1811-13), was Rector of St. James’ Church in New York City (1813-19), and was the first Rector of St. Paul’s Church in Boston (1820-26). From 1835-37 he was a professor of Oriental literature at Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut, and from 1837-42, he was Rector of Christ Church in Middletown. In 1838 he was appointed historiographer by the General Convention of the Episcopal Church, and in 1850 published The Church of the Redeemed.

Moore was intimately connected to the Episcopal Church. The son of an Episcopal minister, he did not follow his father into the ministry, but became a renowned biblical and Hebrew language scholar. Upon the death of his mother, Moore donated a large tract of the family’s New York City land to the Episcopal Diocese for the construction of a seminary, The General Theological Seminary. Moore then served as a professor of Oriental and Greek literature at the Seminary for 29 years, from 1821-50. Outside of their similar scholarly pursuits, Moore and Jarvis were both connected to St. Mary’s Episcopal Church in Harlem. Prior to the erection of the Church in 1824, Jarvis helped organize the congregation in Manhattanville, and gave sermons at the Thomas Finlay’s school near the present-day church. Later, following the Church’s construction, Moore was one of its first contributors.

Moore first wrote “A Visit from St. Nicholas” in 1822 as a Christmas gift for his children. It was then purportedly copied by a houseguest and published anonymously the following year in the Troy Sentinel, on December 23. “It first appeared between covers in the New Brunswick, (N.J.), Almanack, for…1825…Calculated by Joshua Sharp, Philadelphia and New Brunswick, [1824]. It was quickly picked up by Readers and Anthologies, some of the more notable appearances being in The New York Book of Poetry, 1837, and in Bryant’s Selections from the American Poets, New York, 1840. The authorship was first disclosed in the Troy Budget, December 25, 1838.“ (Grolier)