MOORE, CLEMENT CLARKE. Autograph manuscript signed ("Clement C. Moore") of his Christmas poem "A Visit from St. Nicholas" ("'Twas the night before Christmas and all through the house, Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse,..."), boldly titled at the top of the first page, the famous last line ("Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good night") neatly underlined by Moore. [Composed New York, 24 December 1822, this transcript written in Newport, R.I., August 1860]. 3 pages, 8vo, 200 x 124mm. (7 7/8 x 4 7/8 in., clearly written in brown ink on pages 1-3 of a four-page gathering, each leaf with two small holes along edge where apparently once sewn into an album, the holes catching but not seriously affecting about five letters in Moore's transcript. Page 4 bears an ink inscription by an unidentified original owner which records the circumstances of the manuscript's creation: "I passed the month of August 1860 at Newport, where I had the pleasure of meeting with Dr. Moore, then in [his] 83[rd] year, who very kindly took the trouble to transcribe his verses for me and to subscribe to them his name. Dr. Moore has been for some years Emeritus Professor of Oriental and Greek Literature in the Gen[era]l Theol[ogica]l Sem[inar]y in N.Y. and was the son of the late Bishop Benjamin Moore of N.Y." AN AUTOGRAPH MANUSCRIPT OF MOORE'S IMMORTAL "A VISIT FROM ST. NICHOLAS" A full autograph transcript -- one of only three known copies -- of what is certainly the best-known of all Christmas poems, Clement C. Moore's "A Visit From St. Nicholas." Moore (1779-1863), the son of Benjamin Moore, second Protestant Episcopal Bishop of New York and President of King's College, graduated from Columbia University in 1798. Moore's family owned extensive lands in the Chelsea neighborhood, on the Hudson, and it was Moore's gift of some 60 acres of land in 1819 which made possible the establishment of the General Theological Seminary, where Moore himself taught Oriental languages, Biblical learning and scripture interpretation from 1821 to 1850. An eminent lay theologian and scholar, Moore was the author of A Compendious Lexicon of the Hebrew Language, the first such work published in America, and as a young man published an anonymous criticism of Thomas Jefferson's Notes on the State of Virginia, certain passages of which, he believed, had "a tendency to subvert religion and establish a false philosophy." Moore lived not far from the new seminary (on present-day 23rd Street, between Eighth and Ninth Avenues). On Christmas Eve 1822, family tradition has recorded, Moore's wife was roasting turkeys for distribution to the poor of the local parish. Late in the afternoon, discovering that she was short one turkey, she asked Moore to venture into the snowy streets to obtain another. "He called for his sleigh and coachman...and...drove 'downtown' to what is now the Bowery section of New York City, to Jefferson Market to buy a turkey. Several sources relate he composed many of the lines in their present meter while riding in his sleigh; his ears full of the jingle-jingle of sleigh bells..." (Anne Lyon Haight, foreword to "The Night Before Christmas," Exhibition Catalogue, Pittsburgh, 1964, p.xv). When he returned, he brought the needed turkey, plus a Christmas poem composed during his errand. After dinner that evening, Moore read the new verses to his family, to the evident delight of his children. (Moore's original manuscript draft has never been discovered and is probably no longer in existence). Some months afterwards, Moore's children told a visiting friend, Miss Harriet Butler, daughter of Reverend David Butler of Troy, New York, of their father's wonderful Christmas verses. Miss Butler copied the poem into her album and the next December, probably unaware of Moore's intention to keep his poem private, she sent a copy to Orville L. Holley, editor of a local newspaper, the Troy Sentinel. It was published there anonymously on 23 December 1823, under the editor's title "A Visit from St. Nicholas," prefaced by a note of Holley, disclaiming knowledge of the author, but justifying its publication because "there is...a spirit of cordial goodness in it, a playfulness of fancy, and a benevolent alacrity to enter into the feelings and [to] promote the simple pleasures of children, which are altogether charming." The poem proved as popular to the Sentinel's readers as it had to Moore's family. The editor, it is reported, was deluged with requests that he disclose the identity of its author. The poem's popularity spread: each year at Christmas the Sentinel republished it. Unprotected by copyright, the poem also appeared in two almanacs (published in Philadelphia and New Brunswick, New Jersey) in 1825 and was subsequently reprinted in broadsides, school primers and illustrated gift editions (for an extensive series of these reprints see Haight, op cit). Moore's authorship remained a secret until 1837, when he allowed his name to be used when the poem was anthologized in The New-York Book of Poetry, edited by Charles Fenno Hoffmann (1806-1884). Later it was included in Moore's Poems (New York, 1844), a small collection of his verse which he published for distribution to friends and family. "It has since been included in many different anthologies, and, losing none of its original freshness, has been loved by American children for more than a hundred years" (DAB). "'Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse; The stockings were hung by the chimney with care, In hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be the there; The children were nestled all snug in their beds, While visions of sugar-plumbs danced in their heads; And Mamma in her ker'chief, and I in my cap, Had just settled our brains for a long winter's nap; When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter, I sprang from my bed to see what was the matter. Away to the window I flew like a flash, Tore open the shutters and threw up the sash. The moon on the breast of the new-fallen snow, Gave the lustre of mid-day to objects below, When, what to my wondering eyes should appear, But a miniature sleigh, and eight tiny rein-deer, With a little old driver, so lively and quick, That I knew in a moment it must be St. Nick. More rapid than eagles his coursers they came, And he whistled, and shouted, and called them by name; 'Now, Dasher! now, Dancer! now, Prancer and Vixen! On, Comet! On Cupid! on, Donder and Blitzen! To the top of the porch! to the top of the wall! Now dash away! dash away! dash away all!' As dry leaves that before the wild hurricane fly, If they meet with an obstacle, mount to the sky; So up to the house-top the coursers they flew; With the sleigh full of toys, and St. Nicholas too. And then, in a twinkling, I heard on the roof, The pawing and prancing, of each little hoof -- As I drew in my head, and was turning around, Down the chimney St. Nicholas came with a bound. He was dressed all in fur, from his head to his foot, And his clothes were all tarnished with ashes and soot; A bundle of toys he had flung on his back, And he look'd like a pedlar just opening his pack. His eyes -- how they twinkled! His dimples how merry! His cheeks were like roses, his nose like a cherry! His droll little mouth was drawn up like a bow, And the beard on his chin was as white as the snow; The stump of a pipe he held tight in his teeth, And the smoke it encircled his head like a wreath; He had a broad face and a little round belly That shook, when he laughed, like a bowl full of jelly. He was chubby and plump, a right jolly old elf; And I laughed when I saw him, in spite of myself; A wink of his eye and a twist of his head, Soon gave me to know I had nothing to dread; He spoke not a word, but went straight to his work, And fill'd all the stockings; then turned with a jerk, And laying his finger aside of his nose, And giving a nod, up the chimmney he rose; He sprang to his sleigh, to his team gave a whistle, And away they all flew like the down of a thistle. But I heard him exclaim, ere he drove out of sight, "Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good night." The present is one of only three recorded autograph manuscripts of the poem, and is the only one in private hands. One fair copy, in the New York Historical Society, was written by Moore at the request of Dr. George H. Moore, librarian of the Society, and is dated 13 March 1862. The other, formerly in the collection of William K. Bixby and purchased by Henry Huntington in 1918, is undated, but may have been written for an admirer in 1856. Provenance: 1. Unidentified original owner, whose ink inscription appears on page 4 (see above) 2. The son of the above 3. J. Clarence McCarthy, of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, purchased from Goodspeeds in Boston in May 1932, according to printed descriptive text which accompanies the manuscript, in a blue morocco binding . 4. Calvin Bullock (1867-1944) of New York 5. Hugh Bullock, son of the above, by descent