WEBVTT - Twas the Night Before Christmas 0:00:15.356 --> 0:00:15.796 Pushkin. 0:00:22.836 --> 0:00:26.396 There are some sure signs that the holidays have arrived. 0:00:26.516 --> 0:00:28.636 The lights go up on main street of the town 0:00:28.636 --> 0:00:31.916 where I live. People pull their coats a little tighter 0:00:31.956 --> 0:00:34.956 around them as they go from shop to shop, and 0:00:35.036 --> 0:00:38.956 my colleague, then the daf Haffrey, shows up to tell 0:00:38.996 --> 0:00:43.116 me some absolutely crazy story about Christmas. 0:00:45.076 --> 0:00:47.836 Twas the Night before Christmas. He and God and all 0:00:47.876 --> 0:00:51.676 through the house not a creature was stirring, not even 0:00:51.676 --> 0:00:52.636 a mouse. That's right. 0:00:53.396 --> 0:00:56.356 This, of course, is a visit from Saint Nicholas, more 0:00:56.356 --> 0:00:59.996 commonly known as Twas the Night before Christmas, a poem 0:00:59.996 --> 0:01:02.996 that Ben has let's just say, learned a little too 0:01:03.116 --> 0:01:05.116 much about over the past few months. 0:01:05.636 --> 0:01:07.716 Have you read the Stuart Little version of this, where, 0:01:08.276 --> 0:01:11.916 to save Stuart's feelings, the Littles rewrite it as not 0:01:11.956 --> 0:01:14.916 even a Laus, because I don't want it. This too 0:01:14.956 --> 0:01:19.236 demeaning to my His poem's everywhere. It's in Stuart Little. 0:01:19.516 --> 0:01:23.436 It's die hard presidents read this poem. The stockings were 0:01:23.476 --> 0:01:26.716 hung by the chimney with care, in hopes the Saint 0:01:26.796 --> 0:01:30.396 Nicholas soon would be there. The children were nestled all 0:01:30.436 --> 0:01:32.676 snug in their beds, while visions of sugar. 0:01:32.516 --> 0:01:34.516 Sugar pumps danced in their heads. 0:01:34.716 --> 0:01:36.836 I'm on her kerchief and I in my cap had 0:01:36.876 --> 0:01:39.516 just settled our brains. Very weird choice of words there 0:01:40.076 --> 0:01:41.076 for a long winters. 0:01:41.156 --> 0:01:43.196 Now this went on for. 0:01:43.236 --> 0:01:46.756 What quick I knew in a moment it must be nick. 0:01:48.876 --> 0:01:52.596 So this is this is the poem that creates, it 0:01:52.636 --> 0:01:56.396 fully launches the modern Santa Claus. It's his, it's the 0:01:56.396 --> 0:01:58.636 first time the reindeers are named. It's the first time 0:01:58.636 --> 0:02:01.996 he gets eight and not one. And it's it. It 0:02:02.156 --> 0:02:06.836 is the blueprint for American Christmas. Very everyone thinks Christmas 0:02:06.876 --> 0:02:09.996 is this ancient thing. There's no ever since that Jesus 0:02:10.076 --> 0:02:12.836 Christ was born on December twenty fifth. The whole thing 0:02:12.876 --> 0:02:17.676 is this invented tradition, and it is this poem that 0:02:17.836 --> 0:02:21.276 gives us the modern American Christmas. Written by Clement Clark 0:02:21.316 --> 0:02:24.436 Moore in eighteen twenty two, published in Upstate New York 0:02:24.476 --> 0:02:26.396 and The Troy Sentinel in eighteen twenty three. 0:02:26.996 --> 0:02:29.956 Until you mentioned this to me, hadn't fully understood how 0:02:31.236 --> 0:02:35.196 extraordinary this accomplishment of this poem is. I don't even 0:02:35.236 --> 0:02:36.636 like Christmas, I could guests. 0:02:36.636 --> 0:02:40.236 So we've established this in prior versions of our Christmas. 0:02:39.836 --> 0:02:42.436 Episode, I can get halfway through that from memory. I 0:02:42.436 --> 0:02:46.756 suspect that an insanely high percentage of Americans can get 0:02:47.276 --> 0:02:49.876 a significant way into this poem from memory. 0:02:49.916 --> 0:02:52.756 I would stake my life on the fact that more 0:02:52.796 --> 0:02:56.436 people this is the only poem that most people know totally. 0:02:56.196 --> 0:03:00.316 Agree total, And I was going to say that an 0:03:00.356 --> 0:03:02.876 incredibly higher percentage of people of Americas not only know 0:03:03.556 --> 0:03:07.516 this poem from memory, but no other poems at this 0:03:07.636 --> 0:03:09.436 length from memory absolutely yeah. 0:03:09.516 --> 0:03:12.156 Yeah, so, but the first thing people would have read 0:03:12.316 --> 0:03:14.356 of the Night Before Christmas is not even the poem. 0:03:14.516 --> 0:03:17.316 In fact, it begins it is introduced by an editor's 0:03:17.356 --> 0:03:20.596 note that starts with the line we know not to 0:03:20.676 --> 0:03:23.116 whom we are indebted for the following description of that 0:03:23.236 --> 0:03:27.556 unwearied patron of children dot dot Santa Claus. Yeah, it 0:03:27.596 --> 0:03:30.156 starts by acknowledging that they don't know who wrote it. 0:03:30.516 --> 0:03:30.716 Yeah. 0:03:31.076 --> 0:03:34.916 So it begins with an authorship mystery, and the authorship 0:03:34.956 --> 0:03:36.596 mystery persists. 0:03:36.876 --> 0:03:39.756 Yes, so I propose to end it here today. 0:03:39.876 --> 0:03:45.316 Yeah, you're listening to Revisionist History, my podcast about things 0:03:45.356 --> 0:03:53.316 overlooked and misunderstood. I'm Malcolm Gladwell. Today we bring you 0:03:53.356 --> 0:03:57.196 our annual holiday spectacular, which this year is not about 0:03:57.196 --> 0:04:02.516 sugar plums, but about a historic theft, a literary crime 0:04:02.956 --> 0:04:07.996 that begins with a bold accusation. For nearly two hundred years, 0:04:08.396 --> 0:04:12.236 have we your TRIPU did this immensely famous poem to 0:04:12.316 --> 0:04:22.436 the wrong person? My colleague bend Adaf Haffrey has a story. Oh, 0:04:22.476 --> 0:04:25.196 one last thing. If you're listening with young children familiar 0:04:25.196 --> 0:04:29.636 with Santa Claus, this episode might challenge their sense of reality, 0:04:30.596 --> 0:04:32.476 Proceed with caution. 0:04:34.276 --> 0:04:37.476 Sometime in the late nineteen nineties, a woman named Mary 0:04:37.556 --> 0:04:40.516 van Dusen logged onto the Internet. She was looking up 0:04:40.556 --> 0:04:45.756 her great great great great great grandfather, Major Henry Livingston junior. 0:04:45.916 --> 0:04:49.876 That's right, seven generations back, and while browsing the World 0:04:49.876 --> 0:04:53.356 Wide Web, she came across a piece of information that 0:04:53.516 --> 0:04:54.756 changed the course of her life. 0:04:55.476 --> 0:04:58.156 One of the pages that came up was just a 0:04:58.356 --> 0:05:02.276 very short little page, but it said two things. It 0:05:02.436 --> 0:05:07.796 said that Henry Livingston was a possible author of Night 0:05:07.836 --> 0:05:11.596 before Christmas, and it said that he had named his 0:05:11.796 --> 0:05:16.476 reindeer for the horses in his stable. Who would believe it? 0:05:17.356 --> 0:05:20.556 Henry Livingston Junior was a gentleman farmer and poet from 0:05:20.556 --> 0:05:23.556 a prominent early American family. He was reputed to be 0:05:23.596 --> 0:05:27.036 a great lover of Christmas, and, crucially for our purposes today, 0:05:27.236 --> 0:05:30.996 not Clement Clark Moore, the person who had claimed authorship 0:05:31.036 --> 0:05:33.876 of the poem not long after its publication, and who 0:05:33.916 --> 0:05:37.156 for almost two centuries the general public has believed wrote it. 0:05:37.956 --> 0:05:40.676 So to Marry and others in her family, it seemed 0:05:40.676 --> 0:05:44.356 he was also the victim of a historic injustice. Just 0:05:44.396 --> 0:05:46.996 a couple decades after a visit from Saint Nicholas, the 0:05:47.036 --> 0:05:50.676 poem was published, his granddaughter came across a best selling 0:05:50.716 --> 0:05:55.116 holiday edition and saw the author's name clearly printed, Clement 0:05:55.356 --> 0:05:58.396 Clark Moore, at which point she brought it in a 0:05:58.476 --> 0:06:01.196 hurry to her mother, Henry's daughter in law, who said, 0:06:01.556 --> 0:06:04.316 someone has made a mistake. Clement Moore did not write 0:06:04.356 --> 0:06:08.276 the night before Christmas. Your grandfather, Henry Livingston wrote it. 0:06:08.356 --> 0:06:10.716 They saw a wrong that needed to be writed. 0:06:11.516 --> 0:06:16.116 So then you start looking at this right now. Henry 0:06:16.156 --> 0:06:19.396 had never claimed authorship himself, but he died in eighteen 0:06:19.436 --> 0:06:21.556 twenty eight, so no one could ask him about it. 0:06:22.236 --> 0:06:25.316 But the family remembered it as Henry's poem, and they 0:06:25.356 --> 0:06:27.916 took it upon themselves to do the research to prove 0:06:27.956 --> 0:06:32.036 it to the world, and so began the Great Livingston Quest. 0:06:32.676 --> 0:06:36.796 This is Montague's and Cabulot's Hatfield and McCoy's Christmas Edition. 0:06:42.076 --> 0:06:47.356 The first person took it up were the children of Catherine, 0:06:48.236 --> 0:06:51.676 my fourth grade grandmother, so I was always pleased about that. 0:06:52.396 --> 0:06:56.716 At the beginning, all the family had was recollection relatives 0:06:56.716 --> 0:06:59.596 who said that Henry Livingston Junior had read the poem 0:06:59.636 --> 0:07:02.356 aloud to them when they were kids, but they needed 0:07:02.356 --> 0:07:05.756 to establish a record. The gold standard would be a 0:07:05.796 --> 0:07:09.476 copy of the poem written in Henry's hand. 0:07:09.156 --> 0:07:12.196 Decided they would collect as many pieces of paper as 0:07:12.236 --> 0:07:16.676 they could, and this is really a godsend because they 0:07:16.716 --> 0:07:20.716 were able to contact two of Henry's children before they died. 0:07:21.156 --> 0:07:23.156 They heard that someone had gotten a copy of the 0:07:23.196 --> 0:07:26.076 poem that had Henry's handwriting on it, and do we 0:07:26.156 --> 0:07:28.316 have it today or no. 0:07:28.276 --> 0:07:32.476 We don't because they're living on the frontier and the 0:07:32.476 --> 0:07:35.116 original burned in one of the house fires. 0:07:35.676 --> 0:07:39.676 But the livingstones didn't quit. When we talked, Mary walked 0:07:39.676 --> 0:07:42.516 me through the generations of people who've taken up the quest. 0:07:42.316 --> 0:07:49.996 Since The next search for proof of Henry's authorship is 0:07:50.116 --> 0:07:54.596 from Henry Livingstone, a babylon Long Island. 0:07:55.036 --> 0:07:57.596 I began to understand that this search was a kind 0:07:57.596 --> 0:08:01.836 of Livingstonian rite of passage, something handed from generation to 0:08:01.916 --> 0:08:05.436 generation like a precious gemstone, or like a feudal title, 0:08:06.476 --> 0:08:07.836 a matter of destiny. 0:08:08.596 --> 0:08:12.116 Having your name in your birth announcement as having to 0:08:12.236 --> 0:08:16.356 research night before Christmas puts burden on your shoulders that 0:08:16.516 --> 0:08:18.476 is very heavy. 0:08:18.516 --> 0:08:22.316 After all, this is an eminent family. The genealogical tree 0:08:22.356 --> 0:08:25.956 Mary has put together includes George H. W. Bush W 0:08:26.356 --> 0:08:29.036 and Jeb as well as a congressman and a mayor 0:08:29.076 --> 0:08:32.236 of New York. Eleanor Roosevelt was also in the mix somehow. 0:08:32.756 --> 0:08:36.956 But alongside the campaigns and inaugurations, there is a single 0:08:36.996 --> 0:08:41.036 golden thread, the authorship question. And I think part of 0:08:41.036 --> 0:08:44.076 that fixation must have had to do with what poetry 0:08:44.156 --> 0:08:47.196 meant at the time. Malcolm and I talked about that 0:08:47.756 --> 0:08:50.476 over a glass of agnog at the annual Revision's History 0:08:50.516 --> 0:08:51.236 Holiday party. 0:08:51.676 --> 0:08:53.556 One of the things that interests me it is a 0:08:53.596 --> 0:08:56.516 poem created in a very specific moment in time, the 0:08:56.636 --> 0:09:02.156 early nineteenth century, and because poetry plays a role in 0:09:02.396 --> 0:09:04.516 public life in back then in a way that it 0:09:04.556 --> 0:09:04.996 doesn't know. 0:09:05.116 --> 0:09:09.276 Right, Well, some newspapers are the mass the mass medium, right, 0:09:09.356 --> 0:09:15.036 there's not television, radio, recorded sound doesn't exist. So you 0:09:15.196 --> 0:09:19.316 have poems all over the place in newspapers and they 0:09:19.316 --> 0:09:19.836 are there. 0:09:19.996 --> 0:09:20.756 They are off, they. 0:09:20.636 --> 0:09:24.076 Can be satirical, they can be funny. They're these very concise, 0:09:24.196 --> 0:09:29.156 pithy ways of expressing popular sentiments. And the ones that 0:09:29.196 --> 0:09:31.476 are really gonna give you a good example, yeah, please. 0:09:31.956 --> 0:09:35.356 My mom grew up in Jamaica during the Second World War, 0:09:35.996 --> 0:09:39.556 has all these hilarious poems written about the Second World 0:09:39.556 --> 0:09:42.156 War from a Jamaican perspective. My favorite this one might 0:09:42.196 --> 0:09:45.156 be an it might be an English one. You know, 0:09:45.196 --> 0:09:47.396 there are all these Americans come over in our station 0:09:47.476 --> 0:09:51.196 in England before the D Day. So she would as 0:09:51.196 --> 0:09:53.756 a kid, my mom would recite this one, the gum 0:09:53.836 --> 0:09:57.116 chewing ink and the cut chewing cow, very alike. The 0:09:57.196 --> 0:10:01.196 difference somehow, what is the difference? I've got it now, 0:10:01.516 --> 0:10:05.276 the intelligent look on the face of the cow. But 0:10:05.556 --> 0:10:08.116 it's to the point, right right that a lot of 0:10:08.156 --> 0:10:11.396 these what but the users trying to navigate is the 0:10:11.636 --> 0:10:16.596 indignity of this huge country of what people they consider 0:10:16.636 --> 0:10:23.476 to be their inferiors, uncultured coming and saving their bacon. Right, 0:10:23.716 --> 0:10:27.556 it's humiliating, and how do they make sense of that humiliation? 0:10:28.076 --> 0:10:28.956 To these poems? 0:10:28.996 --> 0:10:29.996 Poems are doing all this. 0:10:30.076 --> 0:10:32.396 Work very much like I'm almost like a meme today 0:10:32.476 --> 0:10:34.116 where it's like you see a thing and you're like, 0:10:34.156 --> 0:10:37.716 that gets it, that somehow ineffably puts its finger right 0:10:37.756 --> 0:10:42.836 on the pulse. Yeah, And the pulse this poem had 0:10:42.876 --> 0:10:45.836 its finger on was that there was a crisis of Christmas. 0:10:46.116 --> 0:10:47.956 At the very moment of its publication. 0:10:48.596 --> 0:10:54.356 Before the visit trend from Saint Nick, Christmas was celebrated 0:10:54.396 --> 0:10:55.796 in a very different way. 0:10:56.596 --> 0:11:00.996 Stephen Nissenbaum, author of the Pulitzer Prize, shortlisted the Battle 0:11:00.996 --> 0:11:04.316 for Christmas in his book. He argues that Christmas was 0:11:04.356 --> 0:11:08.156 always about these social inversions. So lower class people would 0:11:08.196 --> 0:11:11.956 live like kings for the best food, the best ale presents, 0:11:12.276 --> 0:11:16.196 provided they were peasants from then on. But those traditions 0:11:16.236 --> 0:11:19.156 were better suited to grand old country estates where everyone 0:11:19.196 --> 0:11:21.556 knew each other and kind of accepted where they fit 0:11:21.596 --> 0:11:25.236 in the pecking order. That was not the case in 0:11:25.356 --> 0:11:27.276 modern American democratic cities. 0:11:28.076 --> 0:11:33.516 It was commonly celebrated as what I would call something 0:11:33.556 --> 0:11:38.116 of a cross between Halloween and New Year's Eve because 0:11:38.156 --> 0:11:42.116 of what amount to trick or treat. Bands of young men, 0:11:42.196 --> 0:11:46.796 most of them pour from the working classes, went roving 0:11:46.876 --> 0:11:51.316 around town. They'd stop at the more prosperous homes where 0:11:51.356 --> 0:11:54.796 they'd ask for food and alcohol. But if they didn't 0:11:54.876 --> 0:12:01.956 get what they wanted, they would ostentatiously withhold that goodwill, 0:12:02.116 --> 0:12:05.876 or they might even threaten to do some small damage. 0:12:06.116 --> 0:12:09.556 Christmas was getting out of control, and so a group 0:12:09.596 --> 0:12:12.476 of elite New Yorkers took the matter in hand. 0:12:12.796 --> 0:12:15.716 We're talking about a small group of people who call 0:12:15.796 --> 0:12:20.756 themselves Knickerbackers, after the Dutch origins of the city. But 0:12:20.916 --> 0:12:23.796 this was a kind of identity that they tried on 0:12:24.396 --> 0:12:27.916 to create again a sense of the good old days 0:12:27.916 --> 0:12:32.116 of New York when the classes did get along and 0:12:32.476 --> 0:12:34.276 the meshing worked very well. 0:12:34.556 --> 0:12:38.396 The Knickerbockers were a conservative organization trying to invent new 0:12:38.436 --> 0:12:42.356 American traditions and also great names for basketball teams go NIXX, 0:12:42.836 --> 0:12:44.876 and they found a figurehead for their new version of 0:12:44.956 --> 0:12:49.716 Christmas in Saint Nicholas of Myra, patron Saint of merchants, bakers, brides, 0:12:49.756 --> 0:12:51.236 the falsely accused. 0:12:51.316 --> 0:12:51.916 And children. 0:12:52.636 --> 0:12:55.756 In the eighteen twenties, the lines between Saint Nicholas and 0:12:55.796 --> 0:12:58.716 the sort of scary figure of Santa Claus, a mythological 0:12:58.716 --> 0:13:02.796 gift giver, began to blur. But how were the Knickerbockers 0:13:02.796 --> 0:13:05.876 going to unleash this new invention upon the huddled masses. 0:13:06.676 --> 0:13:09.676 The answer came in eighteen twenty three with the poem 0:13:09.716 --> 0:13:12.876 we've been talking about in this episode, five hundred and 0:13:12.876 --> 0:13:16.116 forty two words about a guy named Saint Nicholas terrifying 0:13:16.156 --> 0:13:17.876 a well to do father by showing up in the 0:13:17.876 --> 0:13:19.916 middle of the night and instead of demanding the best 0:13:19.956 --> 0:13:23.316 grog in the house, leaving a bunch of presents, exactly 0:13:23.356 --> 0:13:26.156 the kind of poem Clement Clark Moore, an eminent New 0:13:26.236 --> 0:13:29.876 Yorker and friend of the Knickerbockers, would write at precisely 0:13:29.916 --> 0:13:33.036 that moment. Moore was a Bible scholar. He lived on 0:13:33.076 --> 0:13:36.076 an estate in Manhattan called Chelsea, which later did in 0:13:36.076 --> 0:13:37.956 fact become the neighborhood of Chelsea. 0:13:39.116 --> 0:13:44.676 The New Christmas that Clement Clark Moore was promulgating continued, 0:13:44.756 --> 0:13:48.956 in a very innocent way, the old social inversion, but 0:13:49.076 --> 0:13:53.636 in this case it wasn't the rich changing places with 0:13:53.676 --> 0:13:57.996 the poor. It was the grown ups changing places with 0:13:58.076 --> 0:14:03.116 the kids. So the children have really replaced the working 0:14:03.196 --> 0:14:05.916 class in the new Christmas. 0:14:06.356 --> 0:14:09.356 This was a version of Christmas that worked, and it 0:14:09.436 --> 0:14:13.276 just got bigger. Clement Moore's estate shrank, but his legend 0:14:13.516 --> 0:14:17.236 and the legend of his poem grew until the Livingstons 0:14:17.236 --> 0:14:21.276 caught wind of it. The problem was that, despite all 0:14:21.356 --> 0:14:24.316 their efforts, no Livingstone had been able to turn up 0:14:24.356 --> 0:14:28.836 any conclusive, historical or documentary evidence proving beyond a reasonable 0:14:28.876 --> 0:14:32.476 doubt that Henry Livingston Junior had written the poem. But 0:14:32.556 --> 0:14:36.596 what if there was another approach? An ancestor of Mary 0:14:36.676 --> 0:14:39.836 van Dusen's hit upon this idea in a letter from 0:14:39.836 --> 0:14:43.116 the nineteen twenties. She had been interviewed for an article 0:14:43.156 --> 0:14:46.516 in the Christian Science Monitor on the authorship question, one 0:14:46.516 --> 0:14:49.436 of the first times this claim that Henry Livingston Junior 0:14:49.476 --> 0:14:53.396 had written the poem went national. This, it turned out, 0:14:53.516 --> 0:14:55.916 was kind of a jarring experience for her, so she 0:14:55.996 --> 0:14:58.636 wrote to her cousin William, who'd set the whole thing up. 0:14:59.276 --> 0:14:59.636 Quote. 0:15:00.396 --> 0:15:02.716 I am writing from my bed. I could not sleep 0:15:02.796 --> 0:15:05.836 last night, and thinking over our conversation, I got drawn 0:15:05.876 --> 0:15:09.596 into this cross examination, which was quite inquisitorial in its nature. 0:15:09.796 --> 0:15:13.836 For the problematical authorship of that poem. It is a 0:15:13.956 --> 0:15:16.036 very delicate question to handle, and I am not at 0:15:16.076 --> 0:15:18.476 all in favor of a writer for a Christian science 0:15:18.516 --> 0:15:22.236 paper handling it. It ought to be touched on, very delicately, 0:15:22.556 --> 0:15:26.356 and by some man of eminent literary attainments. Wait till 0:15:26.396 --> 0:15:29.476 you find the fit man to do it. We relatives 0:15:29.596 --> 0:15:32.436 would only have dirt thrown at us by press and people, 0:15:32.516 --> 0:15:35.756 for see Moore is a demigod almost in their eyes. 0:15:36.396 --> 0:15:39.436 Almost a century has this fetish been adored. And I 0:15:39.476 --> 0:15:42.596 will not have myself or my family mixed up in it. 0:15:42.596 --> 0:15:45.116 It is too delicate a subject to be dragged and 0:15:45.236 --> 0:15:49.516 raked about except with great tact and reverence. Wait till 0:15:49.556 --> 0:15:52.316 you get someone of high literary merit to write about 0:15:52.316 --> 0:15:55.516 the authorship. Do not make this any but a first 0:15:55.516 --> 0:16:01.396 class writer. End quote. Without documentary proof, the Livingstones needed 0:16:01.396 --> 0:16:04.756 to make a stylistic argument that this poem sounded like 0:16:04.836 --> 0:16:09.916 Livingstin and not like more and only someone of literary 0:16:09.956 --> 0:16:14.596 attainments could really land it. The Living Stones would wait 0:16:14.796 --> 0:16:19.836 nearly eighty years until Mary van Dusen came across that website, 0:16:20.276 --> 0:16:23.356 took up the family quest and found such a scholar. 0:16:23.716 --> 0:16:28.196 At last, I figured I needed a poetry expert, so 0:16:28.276 --> 0:16:31.756 I went to the internet and I looked at a 0:16:32.516 --> 0:16:39.556 archive poetry. I saw Ian Lancashire as the expert of 0:16:39.676 --> 0:16:43.556 the website and sent to email and I said, I 0:16:43.636 --> 0:16:44.516 have this problem. 0:16:44.636 --> 0:16:45.356 What do I do? 0:16:45.756 --> 0:16:47.796 And he said, you find Don. 0:16:49.196 --> 0:16:53.156 When we're back. Don the man ab eminent literary attainments 0:16:53.996 --> 0:16:56.556 and the very best thing the Livingstons could ever hope 0:16:56.556 --> 0:17:17.916 to find in their stockings. It's the week before Thanksgiving, 0:17:18.276 --> 0:17:21.676 the year two thousand. A group of people file into 0:17:21.716 --> 0:17:24.756 a bookstore in Washington, d C. To have their very 0:17:24.796 --> 0:17:28.676 sense of reality challenged. The event aired on c SPAN. 0:17:30.116 --> 0:17:31.796 Thanks is great to be with you this evening. 0:17:32.956 --> 0:17:35.636 This is Don Foster. At the time, he was an 0:17:35.636 --> 0:17:38.916 English professor at Vassar. He's straight out of Central Casting 0:17:39.356 --> 0:17:43.196 Laser khakis, tie handsome in a dead poet's Society kind 0:17:43.196 --> 0:17:46.436 of way. When he makes a particularly devilish point, he 0:17:46.556 --> 0:17:50.396 shrugs his shoulders almost imperceptibly as his eyes wander to 0:17:50.476 --> 0:17:53.516 the corner of his great big glasses, as if to say, 0:17:53.916 --> 0:17:56.196 do I dare to eat a peach. Do I dare 0:17:56.316 --> 0:17:57.316 disturb the universe? 0:17:58.196 --> 0:17:58.516 I do. 0:17:59.636 --> 0:18:02.516 My office is what you would expect in English professor's 0:18:03.076 --> 0:18:05.916 office to be piled high with student papers and with 0:18:05.996 --> 0:18:09.396 writings I have studied by poets and play rights. I'm 0:18:09.396 --> 0:18:13.636 still unknown, but intermixed with the literary text are others 0:18:13.676 --> 0:18:17.876 by Felon Zealotz or Nameless resent Nix, whose identity your 0:18:17.916 --> 0:18:21.516 actions were of sufficient interest for someone to ask who 0:18:21.556 --> 0:18:22.396 wrote this thing? 0:18:23.516 --> 0:18:27.356 Professor Foster made his name arguing that an anonymously published 0:18:27.396 --> 0:18:31.956 poem called a Funeral Elegy was actually written by William Shakespeare. 0:18:32.476 --> 0:18:36.476 He'd used modern computer analysis to argue it so forcefully 0:18:36.796 --> 0:18:41.356 that anthologies were updated and the press took note. Foster's 0:18:41.396 --> 0:18:42.396 phone began to. 0:18:42.396 --> 0:18:44.196 Ring, Professor, do you know that you're going to be 0:18:44.276 --> 0:18:45.836 on the front page of the New York Times tomorrow? 0:18:45.836 --> 0:18:48.756 And I said, well, Professor, a star was born. 0:18:49.516 --> 0:18:53.756 Foster practiced a kind of forensics called literary attribution. The 0:18:53.796 --> 0:18:55.996 premise was that each of us has a style, a 0:18:56.076 --> 0:18:58.996 kind of fingerprint in the way we write that, if revealed, 0:18:59.276 --> 0:19:03.436 would prove conclusively that we wrote something. Dusting for that 0:19:03.436 --> 0:19:08.556 fingerprint relied on two key methodologies. First, computer analysis, where 0:19:08.636 --> 0:19:11.996 statistic patterns could be detected in an author's work, kind 0:19:12.036 --> 0:19:16.196 of like large language models. Now a second, an investigator 0:19:16.436 --> 0:19:20.036 would marshal their own powers of close reading. For instance, 0:19:20.316 --> 0:19:23.556 just weeks after the Shakespeare story blew Up, Foster was 0:19:23.556 --> 0:19:26.476 asked to identify the anonymous author of a dish novel 0:19:26.796 --> 0:19:30.676 called Primary Colors, a thinly veiled account of the Clinton campaign. 0:19:31.556 --> 0:19:34.756 Foster had a list of suspects. He fed samples of 0:19:34.796 --> 0:19:37.876 their writing into his computer and began to look closely 0:19:37.916 --> 0:19:41.476 at how the book was written. The anonymous writer showed 0:19:41.476 --> 0:19:45.356 a preference for adverbs with l y endings like vaguely. 0:19:46.116 --> 0:19:49.516 He used dashes to make compound words like triple back 0:19:49.556 --> 0:19:51.276 over somersault and pander pirouette. 0:19:51.956 --> 0:19:53.436 He liked zany adjectives. 0:19:54.116 --> 0:19:58.396 His pros thought Foster revealed certain racial ideas, and all 0:19:58.436 --> 0:20:02.716 those signs pointed clearly to the journalist Joe Klein. Foster 0:20:02.796 --> 0:20:06.716 nailed it. Klin eventually fessed up, and this was when 0:20:06.756 --> 0:20:09.076 things started to get weird for the professor. 0:20:09.516 --> 0:20:14.116 And at that point prosecutors and defenders and police and 0:20:14.236 --> 0:20:18.156 other investigators saw in my work application that I had 0:20:18.196 --> 0:20:22.516 not really thought of myself questioned. Documents in criminal cases 0:20:22.556 --> 0:20:28.836 and other kinds of anonymous libels Harris mensa were suddenly 0:20:29.116 --> 0:20:30.716 being sent to me and saying, can you figure out 0:20:30.836 --> 0:20:31.516 who wrote this? 0:20:32.316 --> 0:20:35.596 Soon Foster was teaching my day and by night working 0:20:35.676 --> 0:20:39.876 the Unibomber case, the John Benet Ramsay case, the Anthrax case, 0:20:40.356 --> 0:20:43.036 and few major news items of the late nineteen nineties 0:20:43.396 --> 0:20:45.036 were beyond the literary forensics. 0:20:45.236 --> 0:20:48.276 Single was Don Foster a report at Monica Lewinsky wrote 0:20:48.316 --> 0:20:49.436 the three page document. 0:20:49.596 --> 0:20:52.596 So I now go back and ask the question, did 0:20:52.676 --> 0:20:53.236 she really? 0:20:53.716 --> 0:20:56.756 The crowd in the bookstore is wrapped around his finger, 0:20:57.636 --> 0:21:00.756 and that's when he starts talking about Mary van Dusen, 0:21:01.436 --> 0:21:05.236 the great great great great great granddaughter of Major Henry 0:21:05.236 --> 0:21:06.036 Livingston junior. 0:21:06.396 --> 0:21:08.996 I got a phone call in August of nineteen I 0:21:09.116 --> 0:21:11.876 twenty nine from a woman who said that she thought 0:21:11.956 --> 0:21:15.276 that her ancestor wrote The Night before Christmas, not Clement 0:21:15.316 --> 0:21:15.836 Clark Moore. 0:21:16.236 --> 0:21:19.636 Mary and Don teamed up. She traveled the country searching 0:21:19.676 --> 0:21:22.636 for proof every version of the Night before Christmas that 0:21:22.756 --> 0:21:25.636 was ever written. She made a corpus of Henry's work. 0:21:25.956 --> 0:21:28.956 She got a microfilm machine for her house for her 0:21:29.036 --> 0:21:32.396 house and read every single newspaper she could find from 0:21:32.436 --> 0:21:36.076 seventeen seventy five to eighteen thirty. In order to establish 0:21:36.116 --> 0:21:39.196 a documentary record, she put it all on a website, 0:21:39.236 --> 0:21:43.476 which ran ultimately to over fifteen thousand pages by her account, 0:21:43.876 --> 0:21:46.716 in hopes that Don could do his detective work and 0:21:46.756 --> 0:21:50.516 find an answer, and he did. He began to look 0:21:50.556 --> 0:21:53.836 into questions of style, just like he did with primary colors. 0:21:54.116 --> 0:21:57.076 What sort of adjectives were used, what kind of adverbs, 0:21:57.436 --> 0:22:01.236 what sort of attitudes were expressed? He compared a visit 0:22:01.236 --> 0:22:04.636 from Saint Nicholas to other poems by Moore and Livingstone. 0:22:05.156 --> 0:22:08.036 Hundreds of thousands of words had been written on this subject, 0:22:08.396 --> 0:22:10.276 and we all have all lace to get to. So 0:22:10.316 --> 0:22:12.476 I'm going to be selective about what we talk about here. 0:22:13.076 --> 0:22:15.596 But a good example of the case he made is 0:22:15.636 --> 0:22:21.996 the question of anapestic to trameter, an extremely tedious matter that, 0:22:22.116 --> 0:22:24.716 of course, is the only thing Malcolm wanted to talk 0:22:24.756 --> 0:22:27.396 about when I saw him. 0:22:27.476 --> 0:22:29.316 I want to be in the graduate seminar with you 0:22:29.356 --> 0:22:31.276 where this poem is taking seriously. 0:22:31.316 --> 0:22:34.396 Okay, let's let's let's uh, let's break down the formal 0:22:34.476 --> 0:22:37.156 qualities of this poem. First, there's the meter, which is 0:22:37.356 --> 0:22:39.756 sort of the crucial thing here. This poem is in 0:22:40.116 --> 0:22:44.316 a extremely popular meter used for light versus satire called 0:22:44.356 --> 0:22:45.436 anipestic to trameter. 0:22:45.996 --> 0:22:49.196 So give it rhythmically, give me lines at show. 0:22:49.236 --> 0:22:51.556 Twas the night before Christmas went all through the house, 0:22:51.596 --> 0:22:53.836 not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse. Da 0:22:53.876 --> 0:22:55.116 da dum da da dumba so. 0:22:55.116 --> 0:22:56.156 Dumbda d d. 0:22:57.636 --> 0:22:57.836 Dump. 0:22:57.916 --> 0:23:00.116 And you, as a parent might be familiar with this 0:23:00.196 --> 0:23:02.596 from like all of Doctor SEUs, So like Horton, here's 0:23:02.636 --> 0:23:04.996 a who on the fifteenth of May and the jungle 0:23:05.036 --> 0:23:06.476 of newle and the heat of the day and the 0:23:06.476 --> 0:23:08.356 cool of the pool he was splashing, and you know 0:23:08.436 --> 0:23:10.676 this kind of like it trips off the tongue. An 0:23:10.716 --> 0:23:15.276 anipest is aligne. It's two unstressed syllables and a stressed one. 0:23:15.316 --> 0:23:18.236 So it's dadda dumb, dadda dumb. That's like a dadda dumb. 0:23:18.396 --> 0:23:21.676 That's an anipest to trameter tetra from the Latin for four. 0:23:22.196 --> 0:23:24.156 It means there's four of those per line of an 0:23:24.156 --> 0:23:28.596 anipestic to trameter. It's such an infectious meter. It's easier 0:23:28.636 --> 0:23:31.236 to memorize and so it can transmit through word of 0:23:31.236 --> 0:23:33.716