Exquisitely detailed drawings by Matt Tavares embody the spirit of a magical night now in a lavish, full-size gift edition marking the two-hundredth anniversary of the classic poem. The stockings were hung by the chimney with care, in hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there. Once upon a time, children imagined St. Nicholas as a stern, skinny bishop who was as likely to dole out discipline as Christmas presents. But thanks to the poem "Account of a Visit from St. Nicholas"--written by Clement C. Moore in 1822 and published the next year in the Troy Sentinel --a plumper, merrier St.

Nick was born, transformed into the sleigh-riding, chimney-diving jolly old elf we now call Santa Claus. With gorgeous monochrome illustrations by Matt Tavares that are meticulously true to pre-Victorian times, this reissue of the holiday favorite ' Twas the Night Before Christmas Or Account of a Visit from St. Nicholas honors the poem's original language in a definitive keepsake volume.