Just before Christmas 1823, his father, mother and siblings were sent to Marshalsea debtor’s prison, and 11-year-old Charles went to work at a shoe polish factory, earning just six shillings a week.

in 1799. The family lived in that house until Hugh Phelps passed away in 1823. After Phelps’s death, Thomas Tavenner bought the house. The Tavenner family celebrated Christmas a bit more than ...

Twas the night before Christmas, and all through the house Not ... To this end, he is turning the 1823 poem inside out to try to understand why it has reigned supreme for so long (launching ...

Donner and Blitzen – first appeared in the 1823 poem A Visit from Saint Nicholas, more commonly known as ’Twas the Night Before Christmas. Rudolph was introduced more than a century later ...