A remarkable collection of 64 Robert Frost annual Christmas cards, spanning 1934 to 1962.
New York: Printed at The Spiral Press, 1934-1963. First edition. This is a treasure trove of 64 Robert Frost Christmas card publications, spanning 1934 to 1963.
With the permission of Frost and his publishers, in 1929 Joseph Blumenthal's Spiral Press began printing an annual Robert Frost Christmas Card featuring one of his poems. The second appeared in 1934, and by “late in the Second World War” the practice “settled down to being a series”. The practice continued until 1962, Frost's final Christmas. All of these Christmas poem publications were either the first published appearance or the first separate edition. Each annual Christmas poem publication was printed with varying names on the title page to accommodate their being sent by various Frost publishers, artists, and important friends, resulting in multiple variations of each card, sometimes dozens, in the names for whom they were printed. Of course, a number were always printed for Frost himself, the imprint “Holiday Greetings from Robert Frost” printed on the title page.
Between 1929 and 1962, the Spiral Press produced 25 annual Frost Christmas cards, although there are a total of 28 years for which the cards were produced. Only three years saw cards produced by Frost’s publishers without using the Spiral Press – 1940’s “Our Hold on the Planet”, 1941’s “I Could Give All to Time”, and 1942’s “The Gift Outright”.
This collection includes representatives (for many years, multiple representatives) of 21 of the 25 Spiral press Christmas cards, plus two of the three (1940 and 1941) not produced by Spiral press. Missing are only the years 1929, 1935, 1938, 1942, and 1949. Included in this collection is one of the 150 copies of Blumenthal’s own 1963 memoir and history of the Spiral Press publication of Frost’s Christmas cards.
The collection we offer was the work of many years in accumulating by a dedicated and quite accomplished Robert Frost collector. It includes the following annual cards and versions:
1934, “Two Tramps in Mud-Time”, one copy, Blumenthal (1 of 125);
1937, “To a Young Wretch”, two copies, both Melchers (2 of 150);
1939, “Triple Plate”, two copies, Blumenthal (1 of 150), and Melchers (1 of 200)
1940, “Our Hold on the Planet”, two copies, Robert Frost (1 of 250), and Melchers (1 of 125)
1941 “I Could Give All to Time”, one copy, Melchers (1 of 180);
1944, “An Unstamped Letter in Our Rural Letter”, one copy, Blumenthal (1 of 200);
1945, “On Making Certain Anything Has Happened”, one copy, Sloane (1 of 300);
1946, “A Young Birch”, two copies, Blumenthal (1 of 225), and Melchers (1 of 170);
1947, “One Step Backward Taken”, two copies, Duffy (1 of 200), and Henry Holt & Company (1 of 1,200);
1948, “Closed for Good”, one copy, Blumenthal (1 of 275);
1950, “Doom to Bloom”, three copies, Blumenthal (1 of 325), Henry Holt and Company (1 of 1,050), and Melchers (1 of 175);
1951, “A Cabin in the Clearing”, three copies, Blumenthal (1 of 375), Buckley (1 of 150), and Melchers (1 of 175);
1952, “Does No One But Me At All Ever Feel This Way in the Least”, four copies, Amussen (1 of 200), Blumenthal (bound in dark blue, 1 of 375), Edwards (1 of 100), and Melchers (1 of 175);
1953, “One More Brevity”, four copies, Blumenthal (1 of 425), Edwards (1 of 112), Melchers (1 of 175), and Rigg (1 of 80);
1954, “From a Milkweed Pod”, nine copies, two Blumenthal (2 of 400), Cady (1 of 111), Clark (1 of 32), Al Edwards (1 of 136), Eleanor and Al Edwards (1 of 106), Henry Holt & Company (1 of 1,767), Melchers (1 of 154), and Wrights (1 of 254);
1955, “Some Science Fiction”, three copies, Blumenthal (1 of 475), Lannan (1 of 375), and Melchers (1 of 175);
1956, “Kitty Hawk”, four copies, Blumenthal (1 of 400), Robert Frost (1 of 600), Lannan (1 of 600), and Melchers (1 of 150);
1957, “My Objection to Being Stepped on”, three copies, Ballantine (1 of 300), Blumenthal (1 of 400), and William Prescott Frost (1 of 125);
1958, “Away!”, two copies, Blumenthal (1 of 410), and Melchers (1 of 160);
1959, “A Wishing Well”, two copies, Blumenthal (1 of 445), and Henry Holt & Company (1 of 6,870);
1960, “Accidentally on Purpose”, three copies, Ballantine (1 of 350), Blumenthal (1 of 450), and Al Edwards copy (in the original franked envelope, 1 of 175);
1961, “The Wood-Pile”, four copies, Blumenthal (1 of 620), Robert Frost (1 of 700), Holt, Rinehart & Winston (in the original franked envelope, 1 of 10,265), and Melchers (1 of 150);
1962, “The Prophets Really Prophesy as Mystics the Commentators Merely By Statistics”, five copies, Blumenthal (1 of 500), Al Edwards (1 of 175), Robert Frost (1 of 800), Holt, Rinehart and Winston (1 of 12,500), and Melchers (1 of 150),
References: Blumenthal, Robert Frost and the Spiral Press, 1963; Crane B2, B5, B7, B8, B9, B13, B14, B15, B16, B19, B22, B24, B25, B26, B27, B28, B29, B30, B31, B32, B33, B34. Item #008770
Price: $4,800.00