Tired of London — Letterpress Card

"When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life."

Dr Johnson, 1777. Letterpress printed by hand, in a limited edition, with Buttons.

This is the card that goes into every Ada & Vera box, and it is the only thing in the box you are meant to keep. It is printed the old way: metal type, set by hand, pressed into thick cotton board on a press that is nearly a hundred years old. You can feel the letters if you run a thumb across them. The edges are painted red. Buttons sits in the corner, as he does on everything.

Johnson said it to Boswell in September 1777, when Boswell was worrying aloud that he might one day grow bored of the city. Nobody has improved on the answer since. We print it because it is what we would like to say to every guest who checks out on a Sunday morning wishing they had another day.

The back is blank, so it works as a postcard, a bookmark, or a note left on a pillow. Propped on a mantelpiece or put in a small frame, it works as a print. Each one is pulled by hand, so the impression and the inking vary a little from card to card; that is the point of doing it this way.

Printed in a limited edition. When they are gone we will set the type again, but not quite the same.

Delivery

Free, anywhere we send to. Add it to a box and it rides along; order it alone and it goes flat in a stiff envelope by post, to your London hotel, any UK address, or the United States.

Fifty pence from this card goes to the cats of London. Buttons insisted.