A rare 26 printer’s block / plate set last used in the 1950’s. The set includes a title page: The Christmas Book, and a frontispiece text block that reads:

Gadshill Place
Home of Charles Dickens

I have always thought of Christmas as a good time, a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time; the only time I know of in the long calendar of the year when men and women seem, by one consent, to open their shut-up hearts freely.

Charles Dickens

There is a small graphic of Gadshill Place above the text on this block. Gads Hill Place is in Higham, Kent, United Kingdom. Sometimes spelled Gadshill Place and Gad's Hill Place, was the country home of Charles Dickens, the most successful British author of the Victorian era. He bought the house in 1856 and lived there until his death in 1870. William Shakespeare refers to Gad's Hill and its relationship with highway robbery in his Henry IV, Part 1. As far back as 1558 there was a ballad entitled The Robbers of Gad's Hill.



There are also five classic Holiday songs, music sheet printing plates that feature the titles:

Jingle Bells
Hark the Herald Angels Sing
Silent Night
The First Noel
O Little Town of Bethlehem



The size of the cover page plate is 6 ¾” x 9 ½”, the printed book would have been approximately 7" x 10". The title page plate has a 1 7/8” x 7/8” opening for the insertion of movable type. This area would have been used identify the printer, or publisher. The backsides of some blocks have the paper backing that was added at the time of last printing. The date of 1958 is on one of them.

The majority of plates are halftone graphics and very hard to photograph. Unfortunately, I do not have a press set up and can not run proofs. All of them appear in very good condition. Some old ink on the surface, two of them have a small scratch at most. An exceptional and rare set ready to produce a fine Christmas Holiday vintage publication. We have flipped the cover and foreword plates for legibility.

You may view all of the plates in the set here.