Twas the Night Before Christmas from Revisionist History

December 18, 2025·40 min·3 clips

For nearly 200 years, have we attributed the famous poem 'Twas the Night Before Christmas' to the wrong person?

The episode opens with producer Ben Nadaf-Haffri and Malcolm Gladwell discussing the poem over eggnog at the Revisionist History holiday party. Gladwell notes that Twas the Night Before Christmas, first published anonymously in the Troy Sentinel in 1823 and later claimed by Clement Clarke Moore, is the only poem most Americans know from memory. Historian Stephen Nissenbaum provides context: before 1823, Christmas in American cities was a rowdy affair where working-class men roamed streets demanding food and drink from wealthy homes, threatening consequences if refused. A conservative group of elite New Yorkers called the Knickerbockers sought to domesticate Christmas around children and gift-giving, and the poem was their cultural vehicle. The episode then introduces Mary Van Dusen, a descendant of Major Henry Livingston Jr., who in the late 1990s found an internet page suggesting her ancestor was the poem's true author. Seven generations of Livingstons had quietly maintained this claim since Henry's granddaughter first saw Moore's name on a bestselling edition and her mother denied it. The family had searched for a copy of the poem in Henry's handwriting — one reportedly existed but burned in a house fire — and needed a credentialed scholar to make the stylistic argument. Mary found Don Foster, a Vassar English professor who had used literary fingerprinting — statistical computer analysis plus close reading — to correctly identify Joe Klein as the author of the anonymous novel Primary Colors, and had consulted on major criminal cases. Foster examined the poem alongside other writing by Moore and Livingston, arguing that Moore's puritanical sensibility and stated contempt for anapestic satire made him an unlikely author, while Livingston's warm, festive verse style was a much better match. The press took Foster's argument seriously: he was in the New York Times twice, appeared on network television, the city of Troy held a mock trial with real lawyers that unanimously voted for Livingston, and the mayor issued a Henry Livingston Jr. Day proclamation. But Seth Kaller, a historic documents dealer who owns a handwritten Moore copy of the poem, examined Foster's evidence and found multiple misquotations and elisions — including instances where Moore's writings actually supported rather than undermined his potential authorship. Two previously unknown Christmas poems by Moore, one from the same week as Twas the Night Before Christmas, further undercut the argument. Foster later retracted his Shakespeare Funeral Elegy attribution, settled a libel suit over his anthrax-case article, and declined to be interviewed for this episode. The episode ends with Ben concluding that Clement Moore most likely wrote the poem, while noting the Livingston counter-argument is still circulating and the official attribution remains contested in some circles.

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A Christmas poem becomes an authorship puzzle, and the appeal is watching that puzzle widen without losing the poem's charm.

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Why you'd press play

You want a holiday classic that turns into a literary whodunit.

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