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The first printing of the poem in the Troy Sentinel of 23 December 1823 shows many of the characteristics of Henry Livingston's poetry - fast writing with near rhymes rather than perfect rhymes and some awkward rhythms. Henry was a sloppy fast poet, as can be seen from the backs of envelopes on which he sometimes composed. Those awkwardnesses were corrected by legions of editors, whose changes Moore took, then added a few of his own. Moore never realized that what he published in his book was so widely edited from the original publication because he took his version from...

I began researching the authorship of "Night Before Christmas" in 1999, and pulled Vassar professor Don Foster into the attribution quest. Don came out for Henry in 2000 to massive publicity with Bryant Gumbel and in People Magazine and The New York Times. But there was a gentleman trying to sell a manuscript copy of the poem from Moore and our research made the value of his document drop, so he hired a paranormal investigator to challenge us. About a decade later, one of the preeminent names in attribution research, Emeritus Professor Mac Jackson, contacted me to say that he...

A teacher friend and I were discussing statistics and I thought the example of statistics in analyzing "Night Before Christmas" might make a good lesson plan. I've seen a number of lesson plans built on the authorship controversy, but not yet on the statistics part. Making it free for everyone until midnight PDT tomorrow is an easy way of passing the info on to her. I've been researching New York Revolutionary War history for 20 years and collecting images. Took advantage of writing this book to stuff in every image I've bought or found available for use in that time...