Cataloging Almanacs

Anna Loewenthal

May 23, 2017

Background

used by ordinary people

best sellers in 16th and 17th centuries

calendars, holidays, festivals, saints’ days,

astronomy, lunar cycles, sunrise, sunset,

tide tables, chronology, weather

predictions, zodiac, astrology,

prognostications, medicine, legal terms,

farming and gardening advice, roads and

distances between towns, country fairs

Timeline

1448 almanac printed by Gutenberg

1540s almanacs printed by English,

calendar and prognostication together

1567 19 titles being published

1571 monopoly granted to two London

stationers, Richard Watkins and James

Roberts

1603 Company of Stationers granted

monopoly by James I

1640s partisan almanacs printed

late 1600s 400,000 copies sold a year

Format 3 or 4 sheets of paper in octavo format

two sections: calendar and prognostication

cost 2 pence

blank areas for owners’ notes

Content

math & science

practical math

popularized new science

astrology

accepted that the stars affected weather,

human bodies, plague, famine, and war

collected to analyze prophecies

Content

math & science

practical math

popularized new science

astrology

accepted that the stars affected weather,

human bodies, plague, famine, and war

collected to analyze prophecies

In Hamnet

Title

Title

Title

Author

Publication

Date

Physical Description

Notes

Subject Headings & Form Terms

Subject headings

Form terms

Copy specific info

Sources

Bosanquet. English printed almanacks and prognostications;

a bibliograpnical history to the year 1600

https://archive.org/details/englishprintedal00bosauoft

Capp, Astrology and the popular press: English almanacs,

1500-1800 (London: Faber, 1979)

Capp, Berhnard. The Potter almanacs.

http://www.bl.uk/eblj/2004articles/pdf/article4.pdf

Kassell, Lauren. Almanacs and progonostications

http://www.people.hps.cam.ac.uk/index/teaching-

officers/kassell/almanacs

Smyth, Adam. Almanacs and annotators. Autobiography in

Early Modern England (Cambridge 2010)

Werner, Sarah. Tis the season for almanacs. 2013.12.10

http://collation.folger.edu/2013/12/tis-the-season-for-

almanacs/?_ga=2.264400973.31572664.1493733507-

199447678.1473185564

Almanac Examples

212- 377q 1673 sammelband

219- 517q 1693 sammelband

207- 183q Pond 1700