Story of the 'Christmas Bells' retold in book and DVD

In 1866, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, one of America's premier poets, published a poem that he called "Christmas Bells." In it, he bared the anguish of his soul, much afflicted by personal tragedy, but also affirmed his faith in the ultimate notion of "peace on earth, good will to men."

Some years earlier English organist John Baptiste Calkin had written a hymn tune he called "Waltham," which had echoes of ringing bells. Whether Calkin paired his music with Longfellow's words or whether some person did it remains a mystery, but sometime after 1872, the two became indelibly linked as the beloved carol "I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day."

The story of the carol was beautifully told at last year's Mormon Tabernacle Choir Christmas Concert, by actor Edward K. Herrmann. He told of the joy the Wadsworth family found at the Christmas season; how they and the rest of the country became caught up in the Civil War; how Wadsworth lost his beloved wife, Fanny, in an accidental fire; how his eldest son was grievously wounded in battle. He told of how in despair, Longfellow could not find the peace he sought, until the message of the Christmas bells struck a chord deep within his soul.

For this Christmas season, Deseret Book has released a children's book, authored by Lloyd and Karmel Newell and illustrated by Dan Burr, which tells the story of Longfellow's poem. The book also contains a DVD of Herrmann's narration, with music by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and Orchestra at Temple Square, as well as a printed copy of the words.

"I had the time of my life, working with the choir last year," Herrmann said, in a telephone chat from his home in Connecticut. "I'm still not sure how I got to do it. I'm not LDS, but my wife is, and I thought maybe she pulled some strings, but she said no she didn't."

However he got the job, Herrmann is so grateful he did. "I have to say that I've worked in many venues, on many first-class movie and film productions, but I've never worked with 700 people who were so well-managed and so agreeable. There were no egos. There was no muss or fuss." He was impressed by the professionalism of both the choir and the orchestra, he said, "and every night, it was quite the audience. We just had an extraordinarily good time."

That's saying something for the man who is now "pushing 50 years" on stage and screen, playing everyone from Franklin D. Roosevelt (several times) to George Bernard Shaw, Lou Gehrig, Alger Hiss and William Randolph Hearst to a ton of fictional characters. He won a Tony Award for "Mrs. Warren's Profession" and has become a popular narrator for audiobooks. He has recorded works by Robert Ludlum, Annie Proulx, Ayn Rand, H.G. Wells, David McCullough, David Halberstam, Clive Cussler, and a whole lot of others.