T is for Type

Or T is for Thurbly. Paul Thurbly, an illustrator living in London. See more of his alphabet series, numbers and other works on his Flickr site. You can collect one or all 26 letters here.

The 12 Terrors of Christmas

Another holiday gem from Edward Gorey and written by John Updike. Gorey and Updike were a great team. Personally, I am just terrorized by all the great Christmas books I'm finding out there. Too many from which to choose...

Thank you for giving me this little book Juliette. I am grateful you introduced it to me. And thanks to Eirik Banna for the images.

More Books of Christmas Past

Sort of an eclectic set here today. This time it's Christmas books from the 20th century. Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Happy Humbug Day, Kwanzaa Day, Boxing Day and Read-a-Book Month, and mostly, happy reading to you all!

Let it Snow Letters & More Letters

These jolly typographic snowflake holiday cards are brought to you by the good folks at 826 Valencia in the Mission in San Francisco—the non-profit organization promoting reading & writing skills of young people that fronts for a pirate supply store. Even pirates enjoy snow and type. Via Felt & Wire.

Front & Endmatter of 19th C Holiday Books

Title page from the original 1862 edition of A Visit From St. Nicholas attributed to Clement Moore after being anonymously posted in the Troy (NY) Sentinel. This later came to be popularly known as The Night Before Christmas. Illustrated by the prolific artist, F.O.C. Darley who also did works for Charles Dickens, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Washington Irving and Henry W. Longfellow. It is quite interesting to see how Darley illustrated the concept of St. Nick's visit by including his calling card which is made to appear as if it is super-imposed on this title page. I imagine this must have been considered very inventive back in 1862.






















Frontispiece for A Visit From St. Nicholas, illustrated by F.O.C. Darley.







































Above: Engraver's mark and vignette at end of story for A Visit From St. Nicholas, illustrated by F.O.C. Darley.






















Ok, this is a much later variation of a title page for The Night Before Christmas. It is from The Gingerbread Boy and Other Stories published in 1925.















Title page and frontispiece page spread of The Snow Image, by Nathaniel Hawthorne & illustrated by Frederic S. Church.



































































Cover, detail, title page and frontispiece illustration of The Goblin's Christmas, a short story by Elizabeth Anderson & illustrated by Alexander Sharp in 1908. Nice, but Santa could drive his sleigh through that wordspacing on the title page there.

19th C Holiday Covers

Stamped cloth binding of Bob's "Breaking In" from 1880. Knowing those Victorians, this probably doesn't end well for Bob and he does some time for breaking and entering. My guess is Bob was also put on Santa's Naughty List.
















Stamped cloth cover & title page of Old Christmas by Washington Irving & Illustrated by Randolph Caldecott in 1886. Published by Macmillan.






















The Girls Own Paper, 1894 British magazine from my own collection.






















Jingle Bells song sheet.






















Christmas Box, published in 1884 R. Worthington. I love the snow-capped lettering on this colorful cover.






















A Christmas Greeting with gold stamped cloth binding.






















Christmas Blossoms, 1847. Gold stamped on patterned cloth. Unusual.



















First edition of Sylvan Winter, by Francis George Heath in 1886. A nice edition of a highly decorative stamped cloth binding in black and silver. Love the icicle type!






















Christmas ABC, a 19th C children's muslin book.

With special thanks to Finsbry and Don of PopKulture for their contributions on many of these wonderful covers.