Author: Wiggin, Kate Douglas
Title: The Romance of A Christmas Card
Publication Information: Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin Company (note also: Riverside Press) 1916
Call #: PS3302 .R6 1916
Book Size: 19.5 cm (H); 13.6 cm (L); 2 cm (spine)
Cover: blue cloth cover; title gilt on the top of the front cover; floral pattern framework around the edges; picture of snow covered cabin in the woods inset on the lower half of the front cover (looks like a paper overlay); back cover, plain blue. Spine: part of the floral design on the top and bottom; the title, "Wiggin" and "Houghton Mifflin Co" gilt on the spine.
Inside Book Covers: off-white background with blue illustration of mountains, trees, snow - and inside front and back covers are illustrated
Paper Edges: top is gilt; sides are not
Illustrations: note the graphics around the title - candlelight and angels. There is a page before the title page that features the title and part of the title page graphic, and nothing else. Color illustration opposite the title page of a woman reading by candlelight; children sleeping left, maternal portrait on rear wall; there is a poem below the illustration. There are graphics at the beginning and end of each chapter (black and white), pen and ink work. No list of illustrations, but in addition to frontispiece of reading woman, there are color illustrations on p. 51 ("Come to your Aunt Letty then and be mothered! She sobbed"), p. 91 ("I never thought of them as my children before"), and p. 116 ("Hands trembled as everybody could see")
Comments:
- no table of contents
- advertisement opposite the title only page - listing other works by Kate Douglas Wiggin (and "Holiday Edition" variation, which ones are illustrated).
- Wiggin perhaps best known today for Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm (which islisted here)
- consider in terms of the rise of illustrators in light of book designers.
Pedagogical Uses/Notes:
- Early 20th-Century American Text Production
- Children's Literature
- Advertising
- Illustration
