![TULLEY, John (1638-1701). An Almanack for the Year of our Lord MDCXC. Boston: Samuel Green, 1690 [i.e. 1689].](https://www.christies.com/img/LotImages/2005/NYR/2005_NYR_01614_0091_000(102405).jpg?w=1)
ALMANACS
(Lots 91-117)
Stephen Daye set up the first North American press at Cambridge, in 1638, and, after printing the famed and elusive Oath of a Free-Man (no copy known) turned his hand and press to the production of an almanac for 1638 (no copy known).Thus was launched a long and active tradition of American almanac-writing and -publication. While at first limited to the zodiacal and lunar calendar, religious observances, planting and harvest times, and sittings of the provincial courts, they quickly became a literary genre and embraced history, jokes, riddles, poetry, medical advice, travel accounts, even political satire. In the preface to his extensive 1962 bibliography, Milton Drake quotes the prolific almanac-writer, Nathaniel Low, who in 1786 claimed that "no book we read (except the Bible) is so much valued and so serviceable to the community." In some cases, enormous numbers of these fragile annual compendia were printed, sold, and, usually, discarded. As Drake observed, "Almanacs have been among the most neglected of America's literary relics," largely ignored by generations of collectors, with the sole exception of Franklin's hugely successful Poor Richard. It is only now, four decades later, that these ephemeral and fascinating early American imprints have come to be more fully appreciated and collected in their own right, for their varied and original contents and for their rarity.
TULLEY, John (1638-1701). An Almanack for the Year of our Lord MDCXC. Boston: Samuel Green, 1690 [i.e. 1689].
Details
TULLEY, John (1638-1701). An Almanack for the Year of our Lord MDCXC. Boston: Samuel Green, 1690 [i.e. 1689].
12o (145 x 95 mm). 16 pages. (Title margins renewed with some loss of text, edges chipped). Self-wrappers.
The final leaf contains a description of rainbows, thunder and lightning. There is also an advertisement for aqua-antitorminalis, a cure for the "Griping of the Guts, and the Wind-Chollick," sold by Benjamin Harris at the London Coffee House in Boston. John Tulley was "a liberal 'outlander' from Saybrook, Connecticut" (Sagendorf, America and Her Almanacs, 1970, p. 44). He issued an almanac each year between 1687 and 1702. His almanacs show a number of differences from the established Philomath almanacs of the preceding century. For example, the year began with January as the first month, rather than March as had been the old Puritan custom. According to Sagendorf, he was also the first to introduce an American almanac weather forecast; for example, "cold and windy" for January 1st or "Dog days begin" for July 18th. Drake 2882; Evans 548.
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The final leaf contains a description of rainbows, thunder and lightning. There is also an advertisement for aqua-antitorminalis, a cure for the "Griping of the Guts, and the Wind-Chollick," sold by Benjamin Harris at the London Coffee House in Boston. John Tulley was "a liberal 'outlander' from Saybrook, Connecticut" (Sagendorf, America and Her Almanacs, 1970, p. 44). He issued an almanac each year between 1687 and 1702. His almanacs show a number of differences from the established Philomath almanacs of the preceding century. For example, the year began with January as the first month, rather than March as had been the old Puritan custom. According to Sagendorf, he was also the first to introduce an American almanac weather forecast; for example, "cold and windy" for January 1st or "Dog days begin" for July 18th. Drake 2882; Evans 548.