‘They had a campaign to censor it’: ‘Scandalous’ the first Christmas card goes on sale

The first commercially printed Christmas card is for sale, a joyous scene from the Victorian era that shocked some when it first appeared in 1843.

The card, which will be sold online starting Friday (Saturday NZT) through a consortium led by Marvin Getman, a US-based rare book and manuscript dealer, shows an English family toasting the recipient with glasses. of red wine.

“Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to you,” he says.

But for teetotalers, and there were many in the 19th century, the images included too much Christmas cheer: In the foreground, a girl is shown taking a sip from an adult’s glass.

That didn’t sit well with the Puritan Temperance Society at the time, which caused so much uproar that it took three years before another Christmas card was produced.

“They were quite distressed because in this ‘scandalous’ picture they had children toasting a glass of wine along with the adults,” said Justin Schiller, founder and president of Battledore, a New York vintage book dealer that sells the card.

“They had a campaign to censor and repress him.”

Getman, whose brokerage had changed online before the coronavirus pandemic disrupted traditional traveling book fairs, said the hand-colored lithograph is believed to be a sample from a seller.

Only 1,000 copies were printed and sold for a shilling each, and experts believe fewer than 30 have survived, he said.

The card, intended to serve as a Christmas and New Year greeting, was designed by painter and illustrator John Callcott Horsley at the suggestion of Sir Henry Cole, a British civil servant and inventor who founded the Victoria & Albert Museum in London.

Cole is credited with starting the tradition of sending Christmas cards, a multi-billion dollar industry today.

It is believed to have been released the same week in December 1843 that Charles Dickens’s “A Christmas Carol” was first published.

Christie’s auction house in London is also selling one of the rare cards and says it expects the item to fetch between £ 5,000 and £ 8,000 (NZ $ 9,530 to $ 15,248).

The Boston consortium also sells “Santa Claus,” a handwritten poem by Emily Dickinson about the jolly old elf. Parents’ warning: Dickinson’s opinion is a bit bleak for young people.

“He’s basically saying that Santa Claus is dead, but the kids shouldn’t feel bad because he’s with the angels in heaven,” Schiller said.