HERE'S a splendid gift at any time for a friend
who has an eye for novelties, and an especially happy one at Christmas. Mr. Buday errs in overloading his book with scholarly detail: the apparatus and jargon of research jar a little when pinning down 'Robin Redbreast and other feathered favourites' or 'Comic, Animated and Mechanical Trick Cards.' But the subject's joy wins through, and we have a superb side-door glimpse into Victorian and Edwardian times, the period covered by this study.
Christmas cards as we know them began in 1843; their 'fading colours and vanishing sentiments' are here preserved for all those who regularly once a year wonder ruefully who started this expensive custom. The book is rich in plates, whichprobably accounts for its steep price. All the facets of dear, dead days are recorded: the Poet Laureate of Christmas cards —a poetess named Helen Marion Burnside, whimsically erotic maidens rising from seasonal reeds, even cards of robins rigid in death, the work of some bygone Charles Addams.
Mr. Buday's private passion is certain to become (to borrow his academic mantle for a moment) the standard work on the subject. I would suggest that he now turns his attention to tram tickets. I'm sure that he could make of them an even more fascinating book.
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