University of Virginia Library

I am grateful to the Master and Wardens of the Stationers' Company for permission to use and quote from the Company's records.

Court Book C, up to 1640, has been edited by Professor Jackson, and published earlier this year by the Bibliographical Society.

The Library, 4th ser., X (1930).

The policy of not detailing the almanacks delivered, which was adopted permanently from November 1687, was in operation for the years 1681 and 1682.

Owing to the increase of prices as a result of the Fire, this figure represents a sharp drop in numbers printed, compared with the previous year. What is remarkable is that the drop was not much greater.

The impact of the new Paper Duties begins to be felt this year.

See note 4 above.

Almanacks were often interleaved before binding, as were Dr More's copies of Rider and Goldsmith which are in the University Library at Cambridge; and some, like Anthony Wood's copies of 'blanks' and 'sorts' (in the Bodleian), were bound with blank leaves at either end.

Eustace F. Bosanquet, English Printed Almanacks and Prognostications . . . to 1600 (1917), p. 10, n2.

Original Letters of Eminent Literary Men, ed. Sir Henry Ellis (Camden Soc., 1843), pp. 304 ff.

Northern Merlyn, English, Farmer, Rivers, Lagg, Sparrow, Pigeon, Friend, Fligg, Little John, Atkeson, Ranger, Robyns, Poor Tom, Maudlyn, Eagle, Pheasant, Brown, Prettyman and Beatrice. Mawburn's fine had been fixed at £95.

See Wing nos A2219A and A2706; and C. S. P. Dom. Add. 1660-85, p. 445 mentions the Company's case, ?1674, against Seymour and Larkin for printing almanacks.

See Wing nos A1805/7, A2387/8 and A2826/7.

At this time a printer's name usually appears on the title-page and (I should guess) denotes the printer of the first two sheets; the third sheet—and, in 'sorts', the half sheet—was very often printed by another, whose name seldom appears. From 1670 Lilliecrap's name appears on the title-pages of Dade; Milbourn's name is intermittently associated with almanacks, but never with either Booker or Trigge; I have found no mention of Bruges.

For an account of him see Print and Privilege at Oxford, by J. Johnson and S. Gibson (1946); and for his estimates see Oxford University Archives, S.E.P. 11*, 7.

The calculation for 10,000 'sorts', in which only the first sheet was rubricated, would be:

Similar calculations could be made for Lilly and Wharton, and, with modifications, for those in 120 and 240.

Some confirmation of my estimate is provided by a statement (in the Waste Court Book for 7 Jan. 1668) that Robert White had printed 6,650 copies of the Protestant Almanack for Mr Ponder at a cost of £19 17s. 6d. This works out at almost exactly £30 for 10,000. No charge for authorship would be included in this figure; but to offset this there was about one third more paper and printing, since the Protestant Almanack, 1668, was, as Mr Neil Ker has kindly verified for me from the Magdalen College copy, of four sheets and not of three.

1928 reprint, p. 384.

See the article by Mr Stewart-Brown in The Library, 4th ser., IX (1929).

Bodley, MS Jesus Coll. B.147.

In some years there were three impressions of certain almanacks.

But not completely worthless; a ream of waste often fetched as much as 2s. 6d., and more in times of shortage.

denotes "printed at Cambridge"; the evidence for this differentiation comes, in some cases, from sources other than the Treasurer's Stock Book. The drop in the 1669 total was due to the Treasurer's habit (only discovered ten years later) of selling on his own account almanacks printed at Cambridge! This habit accounts for the lack of reference to Whiting; Ephemeris (Wing A 2762). The odd quantities of many of the Cambridge figures are caused by the keeping back of some almanacks for sale at and near Cambridge. The Vincent Wing series ended in 1672; the John Wing series, printed at Cambridge, began in 1680.