The Night Before Christmas

With more than 44 million books in print, Jan Brett is one of the nation’s foremost illustrators of children’s books.  As a child, she decided to be an illustrator and spent much of her time reading and drawing. As a student at the Boston Museum School, Jan spent many hours in the Museum of Fine Arts. Travel is also a constant inspiration, so with her husband, Joe Hearne, who was a member of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, she visits many different countries where she researches the architecture and costumes that appear in her work. Jan lives in a seacoast town in Massachusetts.

Clement Clarke Moore was born in New York City and attended Columbia College, graduating at the top of his class in 1798. While he authored various works, his most beloved is the poem “A Visit from St. Nicholas,” better known as “The Night Before Christmas,” written in 1822 for his nine children. Moore taught Greek and oriental literature at the General Theological Society from 1823 until he retired in 1850. He died in Newport, Rhode Island, in 1863.