Thursday, December 16, 2010

The Night Before Christmas

The Night Before Christmas
Clement C. Moore ~ Corinne Malvern ~ Western Publishing, 1949


Now time for the obligatory The Night Before Christmas. This Malvern-illustrated version has come in countless incarnations with a medley of different covers, but here, I share my 1970s (?) edition. I particularly like the cover of this one I found on flickr, and I don't believe Ms. Malvern drew that illustration. Anyone? Anyone? Anywho.

The story of the peddler opening his pack never gets old for me no matter who's doing the drawing. I'm still hoping Santa will drop Fuji's on me someday. Hint, hint.

That said, a very red and round, old school jolly fat man here... a definite descendant of Thomas Nast's Harper's Weekly creation. I was really hoping to read the boy The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus by L. Frank Baum this time around, but now my copy seems to be AWOL. Oh well, one more year of a visit from St. Nick doesn't phase me in the slightest. My favorite line...

As dry leaves that before the wild hurricane fly,
When they meet with an obstacle, mount to the sky.


Wow. Such a great line. Such a great poem. Cheers all.

Also by:
Christmas Nutshell Library ~ Hilary Knight version
The Night Before Christmas ~ Weisgard version
The Night Before Christmas ~ Charles Clement version

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6 comments:

Sugar Bear said...

This brings back some wonderful memories! I had this book as I'm sure many of us did. The illustrations in this particular version are wonderful.
Karla

David L Rattigan said...

My dad used to read to us from this particular illustrated version every Christmas Eve. Ours had this cover. This blog post was a great nostalgia trip. Passing the link on to my sister!

Diane L. said...

That's my favorite line as well--so beautifully simple and descriptive, despite it's unusual word order. Thank you for sharing!

Heather said...

I literally gasped when I saw this post. We had this same edition when I was a kid and I used to read it over and over. I totally forgot about it until now. Wow, blast from the past.

And that's why I love your blog -- love those trips down memory lane!

Burgin Streetman said...

Sooooo cool. I love that so many people remember!

Anonymous said...

I'm going to go with "Tibor Gergely" for that cover illustration. Do I win?

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