Twas the Night: The Art and History of the Classic Christmas Poem

by Pamela Mccoll

Twas The Night – The Art and History of the Classic Christmas Poem is the first cultural history to be published of the highly-celebrated poem A Visit from St. Nicholas, also known as Twas The Night Before Christmas.

The artwork and literary references presented in this publication were selected to demonstrate the way in which “The Poet of Christmas Eve” drew upon two centuries of winter cultural traditions and customs, as well as elements from the spiritual and secular sectors, in the creation of the work. Dozens of vintage illustrations were carefully chosen for this publication from the thousands of editions published over years, along with examples of works by both commercial illustrators and fine artist who were drawn to the poem's enchanting imagery.

Over two hundred images are presented in the book including artwork by Jessie Willcox Smith, N.C. Wyeth, Norman Rockwell, Andy Warhol, N.C. Wyeth, F.O.C. Darley, and the incomparable Thomas Nast. In 2022 and 2023 the poem marks two bi-centennial milestones; first read aloud by Clement Clarke Moore of New York on Christmas Eve 1822, with its print debut appearing in the Troy Sentinel newspapers of Troy, New York for December 23, 1823.

The poem has been referred to “ a little masterpiece of juvenile fiction” “one of the best poems for children ever written,” “the most-published, most-read, most-memorized, and most-collected book in all of Christmas literature.” This book is a celebration of the poem's brilliance and its phenomenon and enduring popularity.

Genres: Christmas, Nonfiction, Art

264 pages, Hardcover

Published September 8, 2022

About the author

2012 Publisher- Grafton and Scratch Publishers. Title to be released Twas The Night Before Christmas. Edited by Santa Claus for the Benefit of Children of the 21st.Century .

As the publisher I was compelled to act on Santa's wish that the reference to smoking a pipe simply drop from the pages to protect young readers from nicotine use.

Publisher of 8 books.

www.smokefreechildrensbooks.com
www.twasthenightbeforechristmas.ca
www.booksthatfit.com
www.youcanstopsmokingnow.com

Pamela McColl
Biography




A children’s advocate and smoking cessation coach, Pamela McColl is releasing a smoke-free version of the classic Twas The Night Before Christmas.

She handles sales and marketing for Allen Carr North America, whose book, The Easy Way To Stop Smoking, is a best-seller with over 13 million copies sold worldwide. His program has helped influence millions of people to quit smoking, including Ellen DeGeneres, Ashton Kutcher, Anthony Hopkins, and Sir Richard Branson.

McColl also hosts an online peer group for smoking cessation through www.depressionrecoverygroup.com entitled “You Can Stop Smoking Now” and blogs through the associated website www.youcanstopsmokingnow.com. She has a special interest in maternity and smoking cessation and previously was a labor support doula and prenatal yoga instructor.

She works in collaboration with the University of California in San Francisco – Smoke-Free Movies
Campaign (www.smokefreemovies.com), helping to put pressure on the film industry to rid its movies of scenes connected to smoking. She also successfully contributed, with a letter-writing campaign, to the movement to convince Major League Baseball to remove smokeless tobacco from the game.

When she was 18 she fled her house, which was engulfed in flames as a result of her father falling asleep in bed with a lit cigarette. Though she had taken up smoking as a teen-ager, she quit over three decades ago.

She is the publisher of seven books, including Pacific Spirit: The Forest Reborn, which United States Senator Frank Murkowski, the chair of the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, labeled as “one of the most important works on forest management” in recent years.

The Canadian has been featured in major media in her country, including Maclean’s magazine, CBC Radio, and National Canada AM-TV.

Her diverse career includes previous experience in publishing, as a health care worker with Canadian Mental Health and as labor support doula. Her early career was spent the field of costume design for film and theatre and she attended the National Theatre School in Montreal Quebec and worked at the Stratford Festival in Ontario and the CBC. The Vancouver resident earned a BA in History/Sociology attended Queen’s University, The University of Manitoba, and did postgraduate work in Theatre History at the University of Victoria, she returned to study as a mature student in the faculty of Women’s Studies at the University of British Columbia and holds certification in Peer Counseling. Most recently she has trained with the Legacy Maternity in Brief Tobacco Intervention.

McColl, age 54, has 23-year-old twin daughters (neither of whom smokes).

Pamela is a member of The Ewomen’s Network and Grafton and Scratch Publishing is a member of the
Independent Book Publishers Association of America.


For more information, please consult:

www.booksthatfit.com
www.youcanstopsmopkingnow.com
www.twasthenightbeforechristmas.ca
www.smokefreechildrensbooks.com

Twitter
@twas4kids
@pamelamccoll1
@booksthatfit

Linkedin

Pamela McColl

Reviews

[Ellen Cutler · Rating 2 out of 5]

The only thing that kept this review from dipping to one-star is the fact that it is dense with terrific illustrations. But that is it.

The book was a gift from a dear friend, and she even had it autographed by the author. I was utterly thrilled to receive it and as a Christmas junkie and someone who still reads "Twas the Night Before Christmas" and Dickens' "A Christmas Carol" every year, I thought it would become a treasure.

Well, it's a treasure because of the love it represents. But, oh my god, the damned thing is unreadable. The organization is a mare's nest, the style conventions are nonexistent, the text is rife with run-on sentences, sentence fragments and every imaginable error of punctuation. The author, rather than writing the book, has cobbled together lengthy quotations from other writers, ancient and modern. These jumps are impossible to follow and it is entirely unclear whose words are being read at any particular moment, despite the provision of authors and titles. McColl says the book is "written and compiled" by here. Well it was certainly compiled.

I looked up the author, "Pamela McColl," as her author's blurb on the back flap of the dust jacket is more a self-celebration. I also looked up "Grafton and Scratch Publishers." She is the "principal" and probably only employee of Grafton and Scratch. The book designer, Elisa Gutierrez, did a find job with what she was given, but clearly what she was given was a mess. I started logging every error, typo and problem at the beginning but gave up by around page 110 because there was something wrong on most pages. The book is 264 pages long.

I hardly know where to start, but I will give a few examples. The book reads like the first rough draft, the bits and pieces one jots down just to get them down. The problem is a competent writer would go back with edits and then somewhere along the line there would be proofreading. No proofreading or editing here.

McColl has no idea what the conventions are when identifying works of art in print, despite her claims to have been an "art major." Most of the time she starts with "artist - ", which is entirely unnecessary and just reduces graphic clarity. Just state the artist's name, add their dates in parentheses, then provide the title and date of the work. That's it. Put all the other material in a "list of illustrations" in the back.

Speaking of dates, McColl loves putting dates after the name of every person when mentioned. But you don't need that. One only need provide a person's dates the first time the person is mention. Moreover, there is no need to constantly identify that person's spouse, parents and lineage. Once is enough. Or create a appendix of key individuals and draft entries with all the information required for easy reference.

Most pages have a section at the bottom called "NOTES." Half the time the notes seems disconnected from the text itself.

The structure, such as it is, the chapter headings, don't match the text included. What the book needs is a massive cut-and-paste job. Create a list of the key topics to be addressed--there are 14 chapters so probably 14 topics--then focus each chapter TIGHTLY on that topic. Every now an then McColl seems to think in chronological terms. Then she jumps to a thematic approach. Then she seems to think, "well, this is an interesting if slightly irrelevant factoid. Let's find a place for that because I want all my readers to be really impressed by my erudition." Then she revisits material from earlier chapters. As I said. A mess.

McColl names and thanks eleven people, three of them McColls, for their "support and assistance." Clearly that support and assistance did not include meaningful editorial critique.

Look, for all I know, McColl is a control freak who cannot imagine taking writing, editorial or design advice from anyone, however well qualified. Maybe she opted out of professional copywriters and proofreaders simply to save money. (What is that? Penny wise and pound foolish?) I am loath to blame the designer because her job only was to take what she was given and make it a beautiful book. Honestly, Guttierez did a bang-up job there.

But this book could become a classic, a staple of the Christmas shelf it McColl would just decide what its about and work with writers and copyeditors who can put it all into readable form. And then she should pay to have a proofreader have a go at it. As it is, she has created an incomprehensible text studded with terrific illustrations. But that's not enough to justify the $36 price tag.

[Ronan MacColla · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a lovely, beautifully illustrated book from start to finish. As an actor and theatre maker, I would highly recommend this to ignite your Christmas spirit, to become more educated about Christmas and for its beautiful artwork.

[David Crumm · Rating 1 out of 5]

Sorry to be a Grinch as the New Year starts, but ...

Over the Holidays, I read through what I had hoped would be—at long last—a well-researched and fascinating cultural history of the role Clement Moore and his poem have played in American life. As a veteran journalist who has specialized for decades in writing about new books—and about cultural diversity—I had purchased this book after seeing many glowing reviews.

I am giving this book 1 star so that some potential customers may pause for a moment and consider:

Pamela McColl is a self-described "author publisher" who I heard about originally, as a journalist, for her efforts a decade ago to remove Santa's smoking from the Moore poem. As a parent and grandparent, I initially smiled and then found myself saluting those efforts. I've never been a smoker; we've suffered cancer deaths in our extended family; and I had to admit that the classic Christmas tale didn't suffer much without the smoking. Also, I'm impressed that McColl set up the publishing house that produced this lavishly illustrated volume. Overall, I admire her efforts.

The problem is that, after many years of collecting tidbits for this new coffee-table-style book, it wound up pretty much like someone's homemade scrapbook of Moore-and-Santa trivia. As I began reading, as an editor and co-founder of a publishing house myself, I was continually annoyed by the typos that were left in this manuscript. I don't know details of her publishing process, but clearly the book suffers from a lack of good copy editing. Then, as I read further, I was astonished at what I consider flat-out errors—and by that I am referring to errors of omission or errors of proper historical context. There are far too many of those to begin nit-picking page by page. But, I can say: What I am describing as "errors" resulted from the casual way bits and pieces of text and illustration were plopped into this scrapbook of Santa stuff without helpful citations or context. Items jump back and forth through history, sometimes drawn from reliable sources and sometimes apparently clipped out of McColl's casual reading. Some of the references to her sources are clear, but many are vague and confusing.

Plus, and this really is the core of this 1-star review: There's no full historical narrative researched by the author, just a long, long string of "clippings" and pictures she likes and quotes that struck her fancy.

Now, if you are a reader who has given this book a glowing 5-star review—and I know there are a good number of you out there—I want to say: Those reviews I know are heartfelt and I also fully understand why you're awarding this book 5 stars. A typical 5-star review says something like "we love the gorgeous images" or "this is so fun to look through" or "my kids (or grandkids) enjoy all the beautiful pictures." And I do agree! There are a lot of beautiful, compelling holiday books each year that are essentially gorgeous collections of images and bits of text, sometimes verses, to flip through with a hot cup of tea—or with a child looking over the pages with you. So, if you're among the 5-star reviewers, I'm saying: I don't dispute your sincere appreciation. I'm a grandparent myself and I know, after showing this to my preschool grandkids, that the pictures are intriguing!

So, why this 1-star review? It's because I love history and I especially love literary and cultural history and I was hoping, when I ordered this book, that finally we would have a wonderfully compelling story exploring Moore's own life as well as the legacy of his vivid poetry.

And, because this book is now out there and racking up so much praise, my guess is that we're not likely to see another attempt at this kind of book for quite a while. I dearly wish that McColl had collaborated with an established historian and a professional copy editor, at least.

As a result, I'm posting my 1-star review so that, perhaps, some potential readers will pause and add these concerns to their thinking as they consider whether to purchase this book.

[Chris · Rating 1 out of 5]

I typically don’t write book reviews and certainly don’t go out of my way to criticize books, but in this case I must share some respectful criticism. In its current form, I don’t recommend that anyone buy this book to read. I make the distinction of “to read” because it is a very pretty book, but let’s dive in:

The Good
As mentioned, the dustjacket, cover, paper, and illustrations are all top-notch as is the placement of images on the page. I appreciate that the creators didn’t shrink or confine these to a single middle section as sometimes occurs in more history-focused books. The breadth of research was also impressive, and it is clear the author spent a good deal of time consulting the original sources.

Lack of Organization
While each chapter orbits around a theme, neither the titles nor the introductory paragraphs solidify what those are enough to act as sufficient guideposts. A great deal more explanation and sub-headings are warranted. Moreover, the chapters bound from chronological to thematic with little rhyme or reason. Sections of other poems and writings are thrown in haphazardly without proper introduction. The notations are often tangential at best and would do well to be either explained more fully or eliminated altogether. And the citation style used inhibits the exploration of the content rather than aiding it. In truth, it could be a much leaner book, which would have aided the reader.

Lack of a compelling narrative
I must believe that part of the lack of organization stems from the lack of a compelling narrative being created to pull the reader through the book. It never seems to settle on what it wants to describe. A discussion of historical symbolism in the poem, the life of the author, controversies, and cultural impact are all warranted. This goes beyond that to the point where the reader must sift through general information about Christmas, Santa, and other staples to determine for themselves what truly links back to the poem itself. To provide a brief comparison, I finished reading The Big Short just before ‘Twas the Night and they seem to be opposites. The former took a dry subject and made it compelling through the narrative, the latter took a compelling subject and made it, if not dry, then at the very least tedious through the lack of narrative.

Facts without linkages
Part of the lack of narrative stems from the over-use of facts. For example, I can tell you every person that has illustrated versions of the poem. Yet, without providing some meaning that links the details to the narrative structure, in essence why we should care, it is simply trivia. Unfortunately, this is exactly how the book ends, a page or two that very much reads like a list of trivia without context. There is no conclusion to the book - no summation - no wrap up – just here’s a list and roll credits. While not the only example it is the most emblematic.

Poor editing
I can overlook many typos in a book if it is sufficiently compelling. All people make mistakes and even things seen as grammatical errors can at times be chalked up to writing style. However, here the abundant typos were emblematic that the book needed extra time and more eyes to reach what it had the potential to be. I will share the most glaring example: on page 168 the book refers to the classic Dickensian character, “Tiny Tom”. Unless this is an unexplained reference to a precursor of the famous Tiny Tim, I cannot think of many errors which could be worse in a Christmas book.

In all, I think this book could be very good indeed if a revised version is created that has a single, solid narrative which it tells from beginning to end, keeping the foundation of research but foregoing the extraneous trivia. For now though, I must advise against picking this up for anything other than the pictures.

[Norbert Jakubke · Rating 5 out of 5]

The only creature stirring was me turning pages, with great curiosity and enthusiasm, the delightfully informative and compelling read that the author Pamela McColl presented throughout this world class historic compilation of facts about the Classic Christmas Poem.
Her deep dive into the lesser-known historical details, the exquisite collection of illustrative interpretations of the hero character and her passion for clearing through the fog of commercialism, only to clarify and celebrate the authentic value of what makes this exceptional read valid. After reading “Twas the Night” if there was any doubt before, you will certainly believe that our super hero is very much alive and well and bringing just a little more joy into all our lives.
This is a book that will be kept front and centre on our coffee table for years to come.

[Barbara Belfie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was pleasantly surprised by the depth of information in this book and loved the spectacular images. This book in my opinion makes a great Christmas present for members my family who I know have read the poem. I was at an event with the author last night and was surprised at the extensive history of the poem. I enjoyed the chapter on Clement Clarke Moore and reading about his family.
I recommend this wholeheartedly

[David Burkam · Rating 4 out of 5]

An expensively produced book -- extra-thick book boards, heavy glossy pages, a sewn-in ribbon bookmark, and beautiful color ilustrations -- that is unfortunately diminished by poorly edited text -- full of typos, misspellings, inconsistent punctuation, and weak organization. The text is an uneven (and often ineffective) combination of long quotes from other sources with some new prose written by the author. Five stars for the former, three stars (at best) for the latter.

[Rose Anderson · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an extensive story of the poem beginning with the genealogy of C. Clement Moore all the way through the development of the Santa Claus myth and the various illustrators who have popularized Santa Claus. Includes Thomas Nast, N.C. Wyeth, Joseph Leyendecker, Rosie Cecil O'Neil, Jessie Wilcox Smith and Norman Rockwell. Many of the illustrations are from rare book collections.

[Matthew · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a beautiful book, and reproduces the art wonderfully. However, I have it three stars because a book of this size should have gone through more rounds of editing. There are numerous grammatical and "textual flowing problems" to make it difficult to finish reading.

[Arthur Salyer · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was given to me as a gift. In our family reading the night before Christmas on Christmas Eve is an absolute family tradition. The book traces in unbelievable detail the origin and history of the poem. It also researches the origin of santa Claus and many of the connected traditions. Throughout the book is a wonderful collection of connected paintings and drawings from the past about the night before Christmas. I am now in amateur expert on the history of the poem. It was a wonderful christmas read

[Helen Meuser · Rating 5 out of 5]

Delightful story about The Night Before Christmas

[Sandy · Rating 1 out of 5]

The illustrations saved this book. I have no idea what the author was trying to even say so the last 100 pages were skimmed at best. Disappointed.