December, 1918 
19 
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1 
0*RISTMAS 
On? line can say 
On Christmas iay 
What volumes else 
Oouid ne'er cc«*ij' 
English Christmas card 
for 1880 
English New Year card 
for 1879 
English Christmas card of 1878 
designed by W. S. Coleman for 
De la Rue & Co., London 
An English Christmas card issued 
in 1880 by Eyre & Spottiswood, 
of London 
Th e M mcws M tc moves wifhoufo'payvs’’ J. 
In qpi!e“doq mot ic measure. 
I only add a friendly "claws”? 
" May this card bring you pleasure’’ 
An American card, probably issued by L. C. Prang & Co., of 
Boston, in 1881, shows the contemporary disregard for seasonal 
effects 
C. M. Gere engraved a wood 
block card of the Magi for 
Christmas, 1893, in England 
A personal Christmas card de¬ 
signed by G. Cave French, an 
English artist 
from America. It is a relief, and scarcely a 
surprise, to know that so wholly charming a 
custom is not German made. 
I have not come across the Christmas card 
of any country that can authoritively be dated 
earlier than 1846. Mr. Gleeson White was 
the discoverer—or the recoverer—of a card of 
that time designed by J. C. Horsley, R.A., for 
Mr. Henry, afterwards Sir Henry Cole. I 
doubt if Sir Henry had ever heard of the Ger¬ 
man birthday cards that occasionally circulated 
in Bavaria and elsewhere. He is 
believed to have considered the idea 
of a printed pictorial greeting card 
for the occasion of Christmas as his 
own idea. It may have been antici¬ 
pated, in a sense, by the card which 
Mr. Thomas Shorrock of Leith is 
said to have had engraved on copper 
by Daniel Aikman in 1840 or there¬ 
abouts bearing the legend “A Gude 
New Year to Ye.” Northumberland 
and Yorkshire also hint at being the 
cradle of the Christmas card, but 
until further evidence substantiates 
other claims I think one may say 
with authority that Sir Henry Cole’s 
is the first Christmas card printed 
and issued for general distribution. 
Mr. Gleeson White found that but 
1,000 copies of this card of 1846 
were issued. These were published 
by Joseph Cundall of New Bond 
Street, London, and were litho¬ 
graphed by Jobbins of Warwick 
Court, Holborn, London, being col¬ 
ored by hand. As Joseph Cundall 
was an intimate friend of the then 
Mr. Henry Cole it is quite likely 
that placing the cards on the market 
was merely looked upon by their 
sponsor as a jolly experiment. At any 
rate, instead of bearing Cole’s name 
as publisher, they were issued under 
the nom de guerre, Felix Summerly, 
which he chose for the occasion. 
Card Mottoes 
The legend on this first card was 
“A Merry Christmas and A Happy 
New Year To You” and no phrase- 
,4 popular card in 1890 was this 
design for the English trade made 
by H. F. New 
maker has improved upon it. There was a" 
line for the filling in of the name of the one 
to whom the card was sent, and another line 
was left for the sender’s name, both on the 
face of the card. This indicates that those 
were the good old days when Christmas cards 
were not furtively inspected in the hope that 
no writing would appear to prevent a revamp¬ 
ing in order that they might go forth 
on their way another season. 
I have often wondered if collecting 
Christmas cards was not made diffi¬ 
cult to the lover of such emhererae by 
being so shamelessly recirculated, 
and kept out of his reach in conse¬ 
quence. Occasionally one comes 
across an odd scrapbook filled with 
early Christmas cards below each 
one of which is written in the neat 
hand of our grandmother’s day 
“From Aunt Fanny,” “From Cousin 
Virginia,” “From Cousin Kitty” or 
“From Willy,” as the case may be, 
and if they are dated the true collec¬ 
tor will bless the accuracy as it en¬ 
ables him to assign doubtful cards 
to their proper period. 
The Inappropriate Designs 
Speaking of periods, there are 
some cards that need no dates to en¬ 
able us to know to which decades 
they belong. Was it not Mr. Dooley 
who succinctly described that period 
“Whin th’ iron dogs howled on th’ 
lawn, and people ’d come f’r miles 
to see a grotto built iv relics iv th’ 
Chicago Fire”? Strange to say it 
was just this period that gave us 
the loveliest Christmas cards we 
have known. It was then that Kate 
Greenaway, Randolph Caldecott and 
Walter Crane were in their heyday 
of delectable invention. There were, 
of course, in the early days of the 
Christmas card, ridiculously inap¬ 
propriate designs to be found on 
(Continued on page 82) 
