The Night Before Christmas

Clement C. Moore

Illustrated by Ella Beech

Beautifully illustrated by Ella Beech, this magical Folio Society edition of Clement C. Moore’s The Night Before Christmas will delight readers of all ages. 

$65.00
$65.00
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‘Beech... offers a rendition that feels like a modern classic.’
  1. The New York Times

It’s Christmas Eve, a family is sleeping, stockings hung expectantly above the fireplace, when a noise outside announces a night-time visitor… One of the most recognisable and best-loved Christmas tales, The Night Before Christmas has been read to, and read by, excited children for 200 years. Written by New York clergyman, Clement C. Moore, the poem perfectly captures the anticipation and wonder of Christmas Eve, and it shaped our image of the festive season, including the idea of St. Nicholas arriving on a sleigh pulled by reindeer.

This special anniversary edition is a visual extravaganza, with 50 pages of full-colour illustrations by Ella Beech. Brimming with nostalgia, and packed with detail and humour, all readers will be drawn into this magical tale. A stunning fold-out section and glow-in-the-dark binding design complete an extraordinary collectable edition that is the perfect festive gift for children, parents and grandparents alike.

Bound in smooth-textured blocked paper with glow-in-the-dark varnish

Set in Mrs Eaves

42 pages of full-colour illustrations, including an 8-page foldout

Endpapers printed with a pattern of stars

Printed slipcase with glow-in-the dark varnish

10¼˝ x 7½˝

“Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good night!”

First published in 1823, Clement C. Moore’s classic Christmas poem was the first time St. Nicholas was presented as a jolly, bearded figure. Indeed, Moore embedded many of the traditional ideas surrounding Christmas Eve that we keep today, and a rendition of his poem has itself become a festive fixture in households all over the world. Such is its renown that it has even influenced modern media and culture, from Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas to the pastiche version performed by the cast of Orange is the New Black. And to think, if a family friend hadn’t sent Moore’s poem for consideration to the New York Sentinel 200 years ago, we might be celebrating a different set of festive traditions today. 

About Clement C. Moore

Clement C. Moore was born and lived in New York City, where he was a prominent landowner and local figure. After studying at what is now Columbia University he was active as a real estate developer, helping to create the city’s Chelsea neighbourhood – it was open countryside owned by Moore until the 1820s. Today a park in Chelsea is named after him. Moore was also a professor of Oriental and Greek history at a theological college in New York, and served as a trustee of Columbia for several decades, but today is far better known for The Night Before Christmas, published anonymously in 1823 in the New York Sentinel and only acknowledged by Moore two decades later, claiming that he had written it to amuse his children for Christmas in 1822.

About Ella Beech

Ella Beech is an artist and illustrator who studied fine art before working as a designer and art director in children’s publishing for 20 years. Having completed a postgraduate degree in children’s book illustration at Cambridge School of Art, she is now an associate lecturer on the same course, as well as a freelance illustrator. She works in traditional media, experimenting with bold compositions and a twist of offbeat humour in her work. She was highly commended in the Macmillan Prize for Illustration in 2022 and was a finalist in the Bologna Illustrators Exhibition in 2021.

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