Christmas Cards of Robert Frost - Article
Biography"I can't help wishing I could send you one,
In wishing you herewith a Merry Christmas."
So ends the first of Robert Frost's Christmas "cards," chapbooks printed annually by Spiral Press from 1929 to 1962. Each year, Frost would select a poem, often writing an original piece for the occasion, and send it to his friends and loved ones—and his publisher's friends and loved ones. Now collectors' items, these annual cards started out simply as a way for Frost to honor the winter season with a poem.
As reported in the New York Times, Joseph Blumenthal, who headed Spiral Press from 1926 to 1971, had been working on a separate edition of Frost's poetry in 1929 when, without the poet's knowledge, he printed 250 copies—for his wife and a small group of colleagues—of a letterpress chapbook of Frost's early poem "Christmas Trees." When the poet saw the