Holiday Treasure

Wednesday, December 24, 2003

By Johnna A. Pro, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

In the dimly lit rare book room on the fourth floor of Carnegie Mellon's Hunt Library, Mary Catharine Johnsen poses a simple yet intriguing question.

"Just what is a sugarplum?" she asks. "These books show how illustrators have interpreted that over the past century.

	Illustration by Florence Sarah Winship is part of the"'Twas the Night Before Christmas" collection at Carnegie Mellon University's Hunt Library. Click photo for larger image. More on the Poem The Poem Ten Interesting Facts About the Famous Poem

Johnsen, who has worked at CMU for 20 years, is the Special Collections librarian and keeper of 367 copies of the Clement Clarke Moore poem, "Account of a Visit from St. Nicholas," otherwise known as "'Twas the Night Before Christmas."

The collection, which includes everything from miniature copies that fit in stockings to beautifully crafted hardbacks, is on public display for the first time in 10 years.

For the record, sugarplums are small candies and illustrators have depicted them over the years in many ways, including as lollipops and gingerbread men.

CMU's collection, although not the largest, is renowned in collectors' circles because it includes all known publications of the poem in its first 50 years of existence with only one exception. The original version of the poem, first published anonymously in the Troy Sentinel in New York on Dec. 23, 1823, is represented at CMU by a photocopy.

Even without the original, the collection is an impressive holding.

"It's a very rich collection in that it has some of the holy grails of 'The Night Before Christmas,'" said Nancy H. Marshall of Williamsburg, Va., author of a bibliography of the poem who has one of the country's largest private collections. "[CMU's collection] is very rich in early editions."

CMU's collection was donated to the Hunt Library in 1982 by the heirs of Anne Lyon Haight, a bibliophile who began the collection in the 1930s when her children were young. Haight, who lived in Connecticut, was friends with Rachel McMasters Miller Hunt, a fellow bibliophile who lived here. After Haight's death, her heirs wanted her collection to be housed at CMU because of her friendship with Hunt.

Since it first appeared 180 years ago, thousands of versions of the 56-line poem have been published. Illustrators including Thomas Nast, whose work has influenced our image of Santa Claus, and Grandma Moses all have brought Clarke's words to life with their own impressions.

"I don't think anybody has the definitive answer for how many versions were produced," Johnsen said. "If you are an illustrator, you want to show off your technique in a venue that will appeal to people."

Christmas, she points out, is the ultimate venue.

Marshall's bibliography identified 1,001 versions of the poem, but the earliest known copies were printed in newspapers, magazines and almanacs.

The first stand-alone published edition, which CMU has in its collection, was done in 1848. It was published by Henry M. Onderdonck, a bookseller and friend of Moore, and illustrated by Theodore C. Boyd. Only five other known copies exist, Marshall said.

"This is just so, so rare," Marshall said.

It's because of Moore that the modern version of Santa includes a sleigh with eight tiny reindeer all with names, a pipe, a fat belly and the ability to enter and exit homes via the chimney.

"Moore gave us all those images and then Thomas Nast really drew them into the Santa Claus that evolved into the one we know today," Marshall said.

Early works show Santa as a New York Dutch peddler, an elfish-looking creature climbing into a chimney with clothing such as a long coat, typical of St. Nicholas. It was only in later decades that we begin to see Santa drawn as we think of him today in a red suit and hat with a big round belly.

The poem remains popular, Marshal said, because of its mystery.

"There's this anticipation, this mystery of what's going to happen tonight when I go to bed?" Marshall said. "Parents remember it from when they were children and they can have fun with it. It hits people's imagination."

From a scholarly perspective, the collection is important because students can study typography, graphic design and society through the various interpretations.

In the collection, for example, "There are no pueblos. Santa has not gone multicultural," Johnsen said.

And while the poem itself remains unchanged by time, the illustrations accompanying it present a chronological depiction of Santa and the times. In the 1950s and '60s, for example, there are editions showing Santa in a hot pink sleigh, and illustrators used colors popular in that era, such as orange and green.

But perhaps what is most intriguing, Johnsen said, is the fact that most illustrators, whether they worked in the 19th century or the 21st century, used color and style to represent the times, but avoided technology.

Moore's poem describes St. Nick "with a sleigh full of toys," and artists of today and yesteryear typically show simple representations.

"The nostalgia of the poem is so important," Johnsen said. "For little kids and faith and Santa Claus, you don't need technology."

Marshall agrees.

"In 'The Night Before Christmas," Santa never comes in a car and the children are not looking to receive computers," Marshall said. "Still today in Santa's pack are the usual dolls and trains and teddy bears."

CMU's collection of " 'Twas the Night Before Christmas" will be on display to the public Monday through Friday from 1:30 to 4:30 p.m. through Jan. 9 at Hunt Library's Fine & Rare Book Room. Scholars and collectors can make private appointments.

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