Bickerstaff's Boston almanack, for the year of our redemption, 1784 ..
Subtitle: Fitted for the meridian of Boston, lat. 42' 25⁰ n.
Series: Early American imprints -- no. 18304
Publisher: Printed and sold by E. Russell, near Liberty-pole; and by Adams and Nourse, near Dr. Gardiner's, in Malborough-Street [sic]. Where may be had, cheap by wholesale or retail, George's almanack for 1784.
Published: 1783
Place of publication: Boston
Language: eng
Number of pages: 24
Notes: Attributed to Benjamin West in Nichols, C.L., "Notes on the almanacs of Massachusetts," Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society, n.s., v. 22 (1912): 34-35, and in the Dictionary of American biography. However, the eclipse notes are nearly identical with those in Daniel George's An almanack for ... 1784 ... (Boston : Adams and Nourse and E. Russell), and all the astronomical notes on the calendar pages are duplicated, except that George's signed almanac adds the aspects and a few others.

No resemblance is to be found between the present almanac and West's North-American calendar for 1784 (Providence). The astronomical notes on the calendar pages include calculations for the rising and setting of the "Yard L" (the belt of Orion) and of the "Eagle's Heart" (Altair). The former, in Massachusetts almanacs, are found at this time only in the work of George and Nathaniel Low, and the latter only in George, whose almanac is advertised in the imprint.

Two states noted. In one (Drake 3331), the imprint (in three lines) is as recorded above. In the other (Drake 3330), the imprint (in two lines) reads: Boston: Printed and sold by E. Russell, near Liberty-Pole; and by Adams and Nourse, Marlboro'-Street.

Advertised in the Independent ledger, Boston, Oct. 20, 1783.

Signatures: [A]⁴ B-C⁴.

Evans 18304

Drake, M. Almanacs, 3330

Drake, M. Almanacs, 3331