An Almanack for the Year of Our Lord God M.DCC.LXXXIV. 1784

London: Company of Stationers, 1784. Near fine/Very good. 48mo, 4 x 2 1/2 in. (113 x 53 mm); pp. 48 + blank pages for each month and at front & back. Very beautiful publisher's Venetian mosaic style inlaid calf in red, green, and cream, with elaborate gilt tooling; housed in a matching slipcase; a.e.g., marbled endpapers. First gathering loose but pages crisp and clean. Binding and slipcase lightly rubbed as expected with an object of daily use.

The title page reads: "An Almanack for the Year of Our Lord God M.DCC.LXXXIV. Being the Bissextile or LEAP-YEAR. Wherein are contain'd Necessary Rules and Usefult Tables; With a new Chronology of remarkable Events; also, The proper Days and Hours for transferring Stocks and receiving Dividends; and a List of Holidays kept at the public Offices, &tc. Curated by John Goldsmith."

[ESTC T35692; OCLC 836846297]. This almanac features two pages per month with a blank page in between for notes, none showing personal annotations. The left leaf bears notable dates and saint days, including start-of-term for Oxford and Cambridge. The left leaf bears moon phases and weather predictions such as "Frost and snow" in January, "Fine spring weather' and 'Smiling showers of rain' in May. Following the calendar (pp.26 ff) are lists of Eclipses, Bishops, Law Terms, Judges, Regal Tables, Stocks, Holidays, Purchase of Leases, Interest, and a long and curious list of Remarkable events (all 17th and 18th century) listed in alphabetical order.

ALMANACS were incredibly popular and proved to be bestsellers from the earliest days of printing. They remained popular and acted as portable compendiums of instructive and useful information for a wide range of needs: they were printed quite cheaply, though often bound elegantly, and were used by every social group.