A group of five finely printed Christmas Cards.

Item Details

Claremont, California, and Williamstown, Massachusetts, Margot and H. Richard Archer, Various dates, ca. 1948-1954], Wrappers.

Sole editions of each of these cards., Fine.

The cards include the following: Christmas: A poem by Martin Armstong. Printed by Saul & Lillian Marks, at the Plantin Press, 1948, 4 1/4 x 5 3/8, printed in black and red; A Christmas Carol From Margot & H. Richard Archer. Printed by the Castle Press, 1949, 6 1/8 x 9 3/8", black and red; Poor Robin’s Christmas Almanack, Printed by the Castle Press, 1951, 4 1/4 x 5 3/8", black and red; Christmas Greetings, Printed by the Hippogryph Press, 1954, 4 x 6 in., printed in green, with Autograph Note signed by the Archers; and Christmas now… as then!, n.d., printed by Grant Dahlstrom, 6 x 9.

Horace Richard Archer (1911 – 1978) was born in New Mexico. He received an undergraduate library degree from Berkeley in 1941, and a PhD from the Graduate Library School at the University of Chicago in 1954 (a note in one of the letters included in the present set references this occasion). Archer began printing at his Hippogryph Press in 1951 after being gifted printing equipment by members of the Rounce & Coffin club. While living in Southern California, Archer worked at the William Andrews Clark Library as a bibliographer. He and his wife Margot counted Lawrence Clark Powell, as well as printers Saul and Lillian Marks, Grant Dahlstrom, and Ward Ritchie as close friends. Archer later moved on to become the Custodian and Director of the Rare Book Collection at Williams College. Margot, who outlived Horace by several decades, is remembered for her contributions to Da Vinci bibliography, including providing research assistance to the art historian Kate Trauman Steinitz for her 1948 opus Manuscripts of Leonardo da Vinci; Their History, with a Description of the Manuscript Editions in Facsimile. The present collection constitutes a homey snapshot of mid-twentieth century Southern California printing history.