Christmasse Tyde was published in 1907. It was reviewed widely and considered a perfect holiday gift book, especially at the quite reasonable price of $2, including a gift box.
Paul Elder had a genuine predilection for collections of quotations. Perhaps they sold well, and no doubt Elder wanted to distinguish the Tomoye Press with original works. (To be sure, Paul Elder & Company sold traditional literature as well—all the great works from Shakespeare on down, including contemporary authors—but those were from other publishing houses. Elder, in general, did not publish works that had been previously published elsewhere.)
Jennie Day Haines authored six collections of quotations for Elder. She was born Jane Elizabeth Day in New York on 26 May 1853 and was an honor student at the Normal College of New York in 1871. She married William Pitt Haines in 1873, and later lived in New Rochelle, New York and Derby, Connecticut. She died in 1924 and is buried in Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx, New York City.
Christmasse Tyde was printed at the Tomoye Press by John Henry Nash. The title page contains an excellent example of his trademark mitred rules: precisely measured perpendicular lines.
Unfortunately, the typography does not rise to the same level. The large uncial letters on the title page is Missal, beautiful but difficult to read. The text type is called Washington Text—ironic, because the typeface is really only suitable as a display type. Paul Elder clearly loved it, however, because it appears in a number of his publications during the first decade of the 1900s.
“Merrie Christmasse Tyde” and “Happie New Yeare” to all from paulelder.org.
