Clement C. Moore: The Reluctant Mythmaker

Truth be told, the 19th-century author who bequeathed us the image of a fat, jolly, white-bearded St. Nicholas ("His eyes — how they twinkled! his dimples how merry!") was himself a dour, straitlaced academician. As a professor of classics at the General Theological Seminary in New York City, Clement C. Moore's most notable work prior to "A Visit from St. Nicholas" was a two-volume tome entitled A Compendious Lexicon of the Hebrew Language. Fortunately for us, the man had children.  Read more...