Volume 14 , Issue 52

The Children's Friend

Have you ever run across Washington Irving's version of "The Children's Friend" written about 1821? But before we get to Irving's christmas poem, The Childrens Friend, here is an interesting side story concerning Diedrich Knickerbocker and the History of New York.

It was in late 1809, while Washington Irving was mourning the death of his seventeen year old fiance Matilda Hoffman, Irving completed work on his first major book, A History of New-York from the Beginning of the World to the End of the Dutch Dynasty, by Diedrich Knickerbocker (1809). It was a satire on self-important local history and contemporary politics. Prior to its publication, Irving started a hoax akin to today's viral marketing campaigns. He placed a series of missing person adverts in New York newspapers seeking information on Diedrich Knickerbocker, a crusty Dutch historian who had allegedly gone missing from his hotel in New York City. As part of the ruse, Irving placed a notice, allegedly from the hotel's proprietor informing readers that if Mr. Knickerbocker failed to return to the hotel to pay his bill, he would publish a manuscript Knickerbocker had left behind.

Unsuspecting readers followed the story of Knickerbocker and his manuscript with interest, and some New York City officials were concerned enough about the missing historian that they considered offering a reward for his safe return. Riding the wave of public interest he had created with his hoax, Irving, adopting the pseudonym of his Dutch historian, published A History of New York on December 6, 1809, to immediate critical and popular success.

"It took with the public", Irving remarked, "and gave me celebrity, as an original work was something remarkable and uncommon in America". Today, the surname of Diedrich Knickerbocker, the fictional narrator of this and other Irving works, has become a nickname for Manhattan residents in general.

The Childrens Friend

"The Childrens Friend" is one of the rarest items, a small booklet, dated 1821. There is only one other copy known in the world. Would love to have a copy of this booklet, but that could prove a bit pricy, huh? If I can not find the booklet, I would like to find the entire poem that Irving wrote for children for christmas.

One of the earliest examples of lithographic illustration in America, it consists of eight pages, each with a picture of "Santaclaus" delivering presents and a verse:

Old Santaclaus with much delight
His reindeer drives this frosty night,
O'er chimney tops, and tracks of snow
To bring his yearly gifts to you.

The poem continues on to the last two verses:

But where I found the children naughty,
In manners rude, in temper haughty, ...
I left a long, black birchen rod,
Such as the dread command of God
Directs a parent's hand to use
When virtue's path his sons refuse.

This is probably the first depiction of the American Santa Claus ever made or described. It predates by two years the famous Clement Moore's poem, "A Visit From St. Nicholas," published in December, 1823. Although it shows Santa's sleigh being pulled by just one reindeer, "The Children's Friend" has the whole Santa story, as understood by generations of American schoolchildren.   |  View or Add Comments (0 Comments)   |   Receive updates ( subscribers)  |   Unsubscribe

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