Postcard of the Night No. 10 – On the Night Mail

In the flickering light we see Prince Peter Kropotkin at the controls while Lenin stokes the fire. The mighty locomotive steams headlong into the darkness. Next stop – the triumph of the proletariat. Always a stirring spectacle, the image of the train by night is a powerful emblem of the romance of travel. This is the work of a postcard artist in the employ of Raphael Tuck, London-based and one of the great postcard multi-nationals of the boom years of the industry. Tuck specialised in hand-painted imagery and this example comes from the Oilette series Firelight and Lamplight published in 1909. The other cards are either hand-painted or much enhanced by over-painting and take full advantage of the pictorial possibilities of the subject.