Almanaque

1803 · ref. 373912 — New York: D. Longworth at the Shakespeare Gallery 1803. 24 engraved vignette illustrations by Peter Maverick. 5-80 2pp with the calendar and memorandum pages i.e. pp. 41-64 engraved. 12mo. Original wrappers each comprised of two plates backed onto each other i.e. 4 plates in total engraved by Anderson. Publisher's red morocco gilt slipcase. 24 engraved vignette illustrations by Peter Maverick. 5-80 2pp with the calendar and memorandum pages i.e. pp. 41-64 engraved. 12mo. As least three issues of Longworth's Belles Lettres Repository were published for 1801-1803 with slightly varying titles: The American ladies & gentlemen's pocket almanac and elegant belles lettres repository. for 1801 Evans 36816; The American ladies' & gentlemen's pocket almanac and belles lettres repository for 1802 Shaw & Shoemaker 50194; and the present titled at the bottom of the front wrapper and as a caption title at the head of p. 5. An advertisement on the recto of the final leaf states: "This is the third Belles-Lettres-Repository. The two former have been done at the expense of the Publisher. this he hopes will be at the expense of lovers of neat things." At the bottom of the same page are descriptions of the plates and illustrations including the "frontispiece title-page i.e. front wrapper L'Allegro and finishing piece Il Penseroso form the cover" and the plate on the inside front wrapper being "Orpheus Eurydice and Cerberus." The vignettes by Maverick illustrate "select passages in Hayley's 'Triumphs of temper' with extracts underneath each. At the foot of each of these pages are the kalendar sic pages for 1803 and the intermediate spaces are ruled for belles-lettres selections &c. . these alternate with twelve other vignettes architectural and picturesque with ruled memorandum pages under each the whole engraved." Shaw and Shoemaker locate only the example at the Huntington which collates precisely as the present; i.e. wrappers comprised of two engraved plates mounted to each other i.e. the front wrapper being pages 1-4 and the text beginning on page 5 with a caption title at the head. An additional example with the same collation at the Hay Library Brown University confirms the work is complete as issued A scarce example in the original slipcase; American publisher's slipcases or sheaths from the 18th century are very rare. The earliest noted by Tanselle is on an 1801 edition of the American Ladies & Gentlemans Pocket Almanac Tanselle 01.01 and plate 9. Shaw 2551 dating the imprint as 1802 locating only the example at the Huntington Library ; Pomeroy J.R. Alexander Anderson 1775-1870 105. See Tanselle 01.01 D. Longworth at the Shakespeare Gallery unknown books