(Almanacs: 18th Century) The Pennsylvania Pocket Almanack, For the Year 1773. (Being the First after Leap-Year.) Calculated for the Use of the Province of Pennsylvania, .... Philadelphia: Printed and sold by Wm. and Thomas Bradford at the London Coffee-House, [1772]. FIRST EDITION.
32mo - 4-9/16" x 2-9/16". [36] printed pages, interleaved with [20] contemporary blank leaves as issued for diary use. Original publisher's marbled paper wrappers, sewn as issued. Housed in a custom garnet cloth-covered clamshell box with titles stamped in gilt to the front cover and spine panel.
The structural and material condition of the almanac is VERY GOOD. The fragile original marbled wrappers remain attached, exhibiting routine rubbing to the extremities, a partial split along the spine fold, and minor loss to the fore-corner tips of the front wrapper. Internally, the leaves display uniform age-toning and faint handling. The original sewing remains intact, securing the text block and the blank interleaves.
Pre-Revolutionary Philadelphian Typography and Interleaved Diaries
This 1773 pocket almanac is a significant artifact of colonial printing issued from the press of William and Thomas Bradford. Operating from their prominent headquarters at the London Coffee-House—the de facto economic and political hub of pre-Revolutionary Philadelphia—the Bradfords served as primary printers to the merchant class and colonial agitators. Pocket almanacs of this miniature format were highly specialized tools, functioning simultaneously as portable calendars, astronomical ephemerides, local court schedules, and financial ledgers.
This specific copy is configured in the premium interleaved format, a manufacturing style where blank paper stock was inserted between the printed calendar sheets at the time of binding. This permitted the colonial owner to utilize the volume as a daily memorandum book and personal diary. The scattered, contemporary manuscript annotations executed in iron gall ink on these blank leaves provide an unvetted glimpse into domestic record-keeping during the politically charged years immediately preceding the American War of Independence.
Bibliographic Scarcity and Census
As highly ephemeral, utilitarian annuals, eighteenth-century pocket almanacs were subjected to near-constant pocket carry and daily handling, resulting in an exceptionally low survival rate. Most extant examples have been stripped of their original paper wrappers or suffered severe text loss through fragmenting. This printing is documented in the standard bibliographies of early American printing, including Evans 12513 and Hildeburn 2800.
A current global institutional search via OCLC/WorldCat confirms the pronounced scarcity of this Bradfords imprint, locating only six copies in permanent public collections worldwide.
A STRUCTURALLY INTACT, ORIGINAL MARBLED WRAPPER SURVIVAL OF A 1773 PHILADELPHIA ALMANAC, OFFERING SUBSTANTIAL ARCHIVAL VALUE FOR THE STUDY OF PRE-REVOLUTIONARY AMERICAN PRINTING CULTURE AND COLONIAL DIARY INTERLEAVING.
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