The volume opens with an oversized, folding map of the city, with a note that the map is a specimen of a new type of plate printing. An advertisement on the back free endpaper mentions that Dickinson has “sold out his extensive Printing Office . . . [and] will now apply his whole attention to his favorite business, the manufacture of Printing Type,” providing stereotyping and music printing as well as “more than 120 different kinds of Job Type.”

Binding: Signed by Damrell & Moore of Boston, with their blind-stamp on the back cover: Brown cloth embossed with foliate designs, front cover with gilt-stamped decorative title.

•  Binding as above, covers with small, fairly unobtrusive spots of discoloration, cloth a bit rubbed over corners and edges and chipping over spine extremities. Map with small holes to two corners; pages clean, with memoranda leaves unused.

Advertisements on the last page, notably forpatent medicines.

•  Drake 13678.   Uncut copy; later stitching; corners cut. Slight dog-earing, title-page a little tattered. Early inked ownership signature at top of title-page and some marginalia or interlineations.  (9959)

Binding:  Publisher's apple green paper–covered boards in original matching slipcase with gilt-stamped spine title. All edges gilt.

•  Binding as above: lower front and back edges each with tiny bump, extremities showing very slight rubbing, slipcase with edges rubbed and a few small spots of discoloration. Front free endpaper with pencilled annotations in French. Pages and plates clean. Really in quite remarkable condition.  (30574)

This includes, among other interesting morsels historical, moral, and agricultural, a long essay onshooting stars.

•  Later sewing; spine reinforced with archival tissue. Title-page and last page with shallow tears in blank area of outer margin. Shallow dog-ears, occasional edge chips. Small hole on pp. 27/28, touching but not costing three letters. Light foxing.  (27818)

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•  Drake 707; Shaw & Shoemaker 13185.   Removed from a nonce volume and resewn.  (9489)

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•  The two wood engravings in the text are signed “Hooper” (W.W. Hooper?). Front wrapper exists in two states: State 1 has vignette of farmhouse, cart, and ship landing; state 2 has vignette of mowers in a field. This copy is of state 2.

This features tidbits on A Religious Home, The Persecuted Waldenses, the United States Mail (a distributor of pernicious literature), Drugged Liquors, Missions, and how to make Apple Molasses — etc.

•  Not in American Imprints?; Drake 8049.   Publisher's green printed wrappers with vignette and a publisher’s catalogue. A good++ copy.  (27934)

Provenance:  Inscription of “Henry M. Pierce / Jersey City / NJ.”

•  Shaw & Shoemaker 44628; Drake, Almanacs, 3826.   Recent limp navy cloth, front cover with gilt-stamped title and date; extremities very slightly rubbed, otherwise very clean and fresh. Front free endpaper with inked ownership inscription as above. Pages age-toned with a few scattered spots; some pages trimmed closely, with headers occasionally touched but not taken. Nice!  (29641)

Binding:  Splendid18th-century embroidered binding of gold wire and silver and colored threads over white silk, each cover featuring one pink flower with a long green stem and leaves at its center. Raised wide swirls of silver with touches of gold surround this in relief, the whole cartouche being set on a background of densely laid-on metallic (silver?) threads semé in gold; a thin gold border edges the covers, with spine sewn in a relatively simple pattern of leaves and crossbars. Boards cut flush with text block, text of calendar section interleaved with blanks for memoranda. All edges gilt.

Contained in this little book, surrounded on each page by a simple woodcut border, are the birthdays of European royals, including newborns; woodcut illustrations of moon cycles and numismata; tables of international currency values, tariffs, and taxes; names of government officials in Liege; a town calendar of events, meetings, and saints' days; and anadvertisement for the publisher, who sold the present almanac in various bindings and other such “cute New Year's Gifts,” including Paris almanacs, at his local shop.This was the fanciest binding style offered chez Dessain, according to his ad!

Provenance:  Ex musaeo Hans Furstenberg (gilt-stamped russet leather bookplate, front pastedown), the famous collector of 18th-century French books.

WorldCat finds similar little almanacs from the same period, butnot this.

•  Binding as above; worn at edges, longest stitches across spine loosening, silver thread tarnished as virtually always and colored threads fading. Minor offsetting from bookplate onto title-page, else in good condition.  Housed in a 19th-century marbled paper–covered slipcase.  (30397)

•  Original front wrapper present, but not rear one. Some chipping and definite wear, especially along spine. Old ink notations. A good copy. (9383)

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•  Drake 4017.   Uncut, stitched, partly unopened.  (21434)

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•  Drake 4251.   Stitching renewed. Some loss of paper and small amount of text on first four leaves to hungry rodent. Waterstains.  (21375)

•  ESTC T105844. Period-style quarter calf with marbled paper–covered sides, spine with gilt-stamped leather title-label and gilt-ruled raised bands. Title-page and a few others stamped by a now-defunct institution. Some offsetting to margins of first and final leaves, pages otherwise clean. A nice little Anglo-Americanum, very evocative of its era.

The last page here, while hoping for peace and amity based on a British change of mind and attitude, makes it very clear what a serious militia (such, for example, as Rhode-Island has) can do against great armies!

•  Evans 13764; Alden, Rhode Island, 530; Drake, Almanacs, 12842; ESTC W22707. Not in Adams, American Independence, but that conceivably was deliberate.   Uncut; stitched as issued. Browned, tattered, handsoiling, bug-spotting and an inkblot at lower edge; small piece torn from title-leaf and same leaf with pin-prick holes not affecting readability. Looks like a survivor of the American Revolution, which it is.  (30423)

Binding:  Publisher's cream-colored paper, front cover with black-stamped lyre decoration, back one with black-stamped laurel wreath; spine with black-stamped decorations (no title). All edges gilt.

•  Binding moderately rubbed, spine darkened. Two leaves with tears from margins extending into text, without loss; pages and plates clean. Inherently a bit fragile, this is standing up well to the years.  (27087)