Celebrating the Holidays with Arthur C. Clarke
Dec 31, 2020
By George Tyler Crock, Archives Division
As I have been scanning the correspondence that science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke received over his lifetime, a constant staple of correspondence always crops up near the end of a year. These being the abundant number of Christmas cards Clarke would get around the holidays. Most of these would be from people that Clarke had regular contact throughout the years like Wernher von Braun to governmental officials like the Prime Minister of Sri Lanka. Outside of the usual holiday correspondence that Clarke received, he would sometimes get Christmas cards from the most surprising of places. One example being a card he got from Lucasfilm (Lucasfilm Ltd. LLC) in 1981. The front of the card depicts Yoda dressed as Santa Claus.
No matter the source of the cards that were sent to Arthur C. Clarke, they all wished him a wonderful holiday season and a Happy New Year.
Please enjoy a selection of holiday cards sent to Clarke below.
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Holiday Card from Ranasinghe Premadasa, Prime Minister of Sri Lanka, to Arthur C. Clarke, 1985. Text is in three languages--Sinhala,Tamil and English. "Greetings for the New Year!" and the signatures of Premadasa and his wife. On the right, a verse from the Bodhicharyavatara: "May the rain fall in time/May the harvest be rich/May the world be prosperous/May the rules be righteous!" NASM.2015.0010-bx035-fd004_022
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Cover of Holiday Card from NASA International Affairs Division to Arthur C. Clarke, 1976. Internal caption: "A portion of the Viking I lander depicting the U.S. flag and the official symbol of the American Bicentennial is shown against a picture of the Martian surface and sky taken on July 24, 1976. Facing southeast, orange red surface materials cover most of the surface, apparently forming a thin veneer over darker bedrock. A zone of large dark boulders is present in the far field. The sky has a reddish cast, which is probably due to scattering and reflection from reddish sediment suspended in the lower atmosphere." NASM.2015.0010-bx016-fd006_082
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George Tyler Crock is a contract archivist with the National Air and Space Museum Archives. He is currently digitizing the Arthur C. Clarke Collection of Sri Lanka. He has also digitized the Sally K. Ride Papers and the Herbert Stephen Desind Collection.
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