JERMAN, John; Benjamin Franklin.
The American Almanack for 1753.
Philadelphia: B. Franklin and D. Hall, 1752.
$15,000.00
In Stock
Item Number: RRB-152826
+$500
The American Almanack for 1753; Printed at Philadelphia by Benjamin Franklin and David Hall
The exceedingly rare American Almanack for the year 1753, printed in Philadelphia by Benjamin Franklin and his partner David Hall. Small octavo, stitched in the original wrappers, with woodcut borders and the traditional woodcut figure of the anatomical man. In very good condition, with some browning and a few stray spots, lacking the final advertisement leaf. Miller 553; ESTC W9247; Evans 6858; Hildeburn 1261; Drake 9741. Housed in a custom silk-lined half morocco clamshell box with folding chemise. From the collection of renowned Americana collector Jay Snider with his small bookplate to the silk pastedown of the clamshell box. A remarkable survival from the press of America’s most famous printer and of the greatest rarity, Miller and the ESTC locating only two copies, at the Franklin Institute and the Library of Congress.
Almanacs were the great staple of the colonial American press, and Benjamin Franklin, who had made his fortune and fame with Poor Richard’s Almanack, printed a number of rival almanacs besides his own. The American Almanack was the work of John Jerman, a Pennsylvania astronomer and almanac-maker whose annual was among the most popular in the middle colonies. Like all almanacs of its day it offered a calendar of the year with astronomical and astrological data, weather predictions, tide tables, and practical lore, presided over by the woodcut anatomical man relating the signs of the zodiac to the parts of the body. Printed by Franklin in partnership with David Hall, who ran the shop in Franklin’s later years, this issue for 1753 survives in only a handful of copies.
The American Almanack for 1753.
$15,000.00
In Stock