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Research dossier · Arts & Letters

I Will Light Candles This Christmas

poem by Howard Thurman

Manuscripts, fine bindings, an engraving plate and preserved performance ephemera
Arts and lettersInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionJun 20, 2026
Entity authorityQ25338380 ↗
Source-derived summary

"I Will Light Candles This Christmas" is a poem by Howard Thurman, who was a prominent African American author, theologian, educator, and civil rights leader.

The poem appeared in a broadside of the same name around 1950. It was printed in Thurman's 1953 book, Meditations of the Heart, and again in his 1973 meditations booklet, The Mood of Christmas.

The verse has been set to music by British composer and songwriter Adrian Payne, both as a song and as a choral (SATB) piece. The choral version was first performed by Epsom Choral Society in December 2007. An arrangement for school choirs, that can be performed in one or two parts with piano accompaniment, was first performed in December 2010.

Editorial summary

This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “I Will Light Candles This Christmas” as poem by Howard Thurman. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.

Editorial reviewBest approached as a cultural-object dossier: authorship and date matter, but circulation and reception often explain the wider significance. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1950, 1953, 1973, 2007—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. The account is most persuasive where Will, Light and Candles can be independently traced.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The subject matters to the arts & letters register because the source frames it as poem by Howard Thurman. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.

Evidence profile

Object files, edition statements, performance records and contemporary criticism preserve different stages of the work’s history. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 20, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q25338380. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1950, 1953, 1973 and 2007.

Critical limits

Rights, attribution and provenance may remain disputed even when a general reference summary presents a stable account. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Separate the work, its editions or performances, and its later reception. Catalogue records, publication histories and object files often preserve different parts of that story.

Best used for
  • Identifying works and editions
  • Tracing reception history
  • Finding collection records
Verify next

The original object or edition, catalogue raisonné, performance record, rights file and holding institution.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “I Will Light Candles This Christmas”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow I Will Light Candles This Christmas primary sources, I Will Light Candles This Christmas archive and Will research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “I Will Light Candles This Christmas”?
  2. Which edition, object, performance or recording is being described?
  3. Where is authorship, date or provenance documented?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “I Will Light Candles This Christmas” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.