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Hello, for 200 years a singular poem has delighted children on Christmas Eve.

And I'll go farther than that and say that it's one of those rare seasonal poems that people read year round and not just children, grown-ups too. It's been heavily anthologized.

I'm referring to Clement C. Moore's classic poem, A Visit from St Nicholas, also known as the night before Christmas or

t'was the night before Christmas and you may know it for that very famous first

line twas the night before Christmas and all through the house.

And you might know it for its other features too, the names of the reindeer for example,

now Dasher, now Dasher, now Dancer, now Prancer, and vixen, etc.

Our view of St Nick or Santa as a dimpled, round-bellied, chubby and plump,

right jolly old elf with twinkling eyes and rosy cheeks and a nose like a cherry.

That's all from this poem.

The poem was Clement Seymour's most popular work by a wide margin. By the time he died late in life, he was revered

as the father of Saint Nick, the father of Christmas Eve, the father it was said of Christmas

itself.

But was this all a big lie?

A scholar on the hunt for the real author of the poem says, yes it was.

Clement Seymour was not the jolly old creator of Jolly Old St Nick.

He was a nasty piece of work, mean and miserly, and he stole the glory of this

poem with his crooked little hands, smiled when others attributed it to him.

Scrooge stayed Scrooge in this tale and nobody called him on it

until the 21st century when the poem's real creator finally got some posthumous love.

The story of a legendary and allegedly stolen poem today on the history of literature.

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