Word: almanac
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From the moment when Appius Claudius's secretary, Fabius, stole and publicly exhibited the Kalendares of the Roman priests, three hundred years before Christ, the calendar of days has belonged to the people and held a head position in the almanacs of all nations. In 1472 the astronomer Regio-Montanus originated the present form of the almanac. The first book to be printed in the colonies was "An Almanac calculated for New England, by Mr. Picrce." The printer was one Stephen Daye of Cambridge; the date...
...independent-minded colonists in America the almanac and the Bible were the only books. Essentially middle-class, with the desire for economic gain guiding and inspiring their material life and Puritanism dominating the spiritual side, these early Americans did not have the leisure nor the cultural incentive to read literature. The Bible satisfied most of their religious needs; the almanac filled, in a measure hard to appreciate today, the want of entertainment and practical instruction...
...literary value of the almanac has been flayed unfairly by meticulous and stodgy critics. They laugh harshly at its bad grammar and with academic glee point out the weaknesses of phrasing. Yet, considering the value of the almanac for of the colonists, one must deafen himself to the cries of the literary know-alls and listen only to the appeals of practicality and amusement that come from social historians. Once Moses Coit Tyler wrote: "No one who would penetrate to the core of early American literature, and would read in it the secret history of the people in whose minds...
...historian and antiquarian the almanac is invaluable. As the practical earmark of a basically practical age, it reflected the life and manners of the colonial period. The almanac was, as it were, the tone of American life until 1800. When the number of colonial printing presses multiplied and the cost of publication dropped as a result, the almanac lost its influence and significance. When it became a relic, it was used ignominiously...
...BOOK of HOURS-Donald Culross Peattie-Putnam ($2.50). Rosary-like, 202-page addenda to Author-Naturalist Peattie's An Almanac for Moderns, brummagem "classic." Illustrations by Lynd Ward...