A Visit from St. Nicholas concludes that Livingston is the true author of the classic work. Notes Further reading A Visit from St. Nicholas "A Visit from St. Nicholas", more commonly known as "The Night Before Christmas" and "Twas the Night Before Christmas" from its first line, is a poem first published anonymously in 1823 and later attributed to Clement Clarke Moore, who claimed authorship in 1837. Some commentators now believe the poem was written by Henry Livingston Jr.. The poem has been called "arguably the best-known verses ever written by an American" and is largely responsible for some of the conceptions of Santa Claus
A Visit from St. Nicholas "breast" in "The moon on the breast of the new-fallen snow" is frequently bowdlerized to "crest"; the archaic "ere" in "But I heard him exclaim ere he drove out of sight" is frequently replaced with "as". This change implies that Santa Claus made his exclamation during the moment that he disappeared from view, while the exclamation came before his disappearance in the original. "Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good-night" is frequently rendered with the traditional English locution "Merry Christmas". The poem has been set to music by composer Ken Darby (1909 – 1992), and by British child