The Nast illustration on the front cover shows St. This issue was part of the Aunt Louisa’s Big Picture Series, and the back cover displays other titles available in the series. The book contains six full-page chromolithographs and six black/white illustrations.

Nast’s illustration was the first to depict St. The first illustration Nast created of Santa Claus was in an issue of Harper’s Weekly in 1863. The 1870 edition of Moore’s poem, featured here, was published by the McLoughlin Brothers and illustrated by Thomas Nast, the illustrator best known for his early editorial cartoons. Slowly but surely, other newspapers and almanacs picked the poem up and published it, followed by magazines, books, and anthologies (Marshall xxi). The neighbor, Miss Harriet Butler, took her copy to the Troy Sentinel where it was published for the first time in 1823, and it continued to be so year after year. A neighbor of the Moores’ had been visiting the night he read the poem, and she had copied it into her album. It was first published the following year in the Troy, New York, newspaper. Nicholas the gift giver had been around for hundreds of years, but it was Moore’s creation that delivered a purely American “take” on Christmas (Marshall xx). It was then that Clement Clarke Moore recited the poem privately to his family on Christmas Eve in 1822, as his six children surrounded him. Moore reappeared several hours later with his poem in hand. Surveying the scene, Moore excused himself, promising his children he would return with a surprise (Marshall xx). Upon arriving home, Moore found his children filled with anticipation of the visit from St. When Moore was returning from his short journey, the tinkling bells on the sleigh the horse was pulling caused an idea to germinate. Legend has it that on a Christmas Eve Moore was sent by his wife to retrieve one more turkey needed to fill Christmas baskets that were being assembled for the poor, a Moore family custom. The history of nineteenth and early twentieth century American children's literature would be incomplete without recognizing the significant impact Clement Clarke Moore’s poem has had on the culture.

The poem by clement clarke