The Christmas card

In 1843 in London, Henry Cole had too many Christmas letters to answer. He asked his artist friend John Callcott Horsley to design a card. Cole’s diary for December 17, 1843 records Horsley bringing the design.¹ It shows three generations of a family raising a glass in the middle, with scenes of giving at the sides, and it wishes "A Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to You".¹

About a thousand cards were printed, and each cost a shilling, which was a lot of money then. Some accounts say two printings made 2,050.^1,2,3 Only about a dozen of the original cards are known today, and the Victoria and Albert Museum has one.^2,3

Cards became easy to send because of the Penny Post in 1840, when anyone could pay a penny up front with a stamp. By the 1870s sending cards was a firm British custom.⁴ In the United States Louis Prang, a German-born printer near Boston, made his first Christmas cards in the mid-1870s. By 1881 his factory printed over five million cards a year.⁵

Another early card, by William Egley, was once thought to be from 1842. Its date was really 1848, so Cole’s card is still the earlier one.⁶