An astronomical diary, or almanack, for the year of our Lord Christ, 1785. ..
Subtitle: Calculated for the meridian of Hartford, latitude 41 deg. 56 min. north. ...
By: By Isaac Bickerstaff. ; [Fourteen lines of verse]
Series: Early American imprints -- no. 18873
Publisher: Printed by Barlow & Babcock.
Published: 1784
Place of publication: Hartford
Language: eng
Number of pages: 24
Notes: Ascribed by Evans to Benjamin West. The eclipse notes are identical, except for the actual calculations, with those in Bickerstaff's Boston Almanack for 1785 (Boston: John W. Folsom); and the calendar pages, although for different vicinities, suggest the possiblity of a common authorship, or the use by one author of another's work. Cf. Bates, A.C. "Check list of Connecticut almanacs." Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society, n.s. v. 24 (1914): 137.

The eclipse notes are practically identical also with those in An astronomical ephemeris, calendar, or almanac for 1785 by Nehemiah Strong (Hartford: Hudson & Goodwin). Here the calculations in these notes are the same, and zodiacal positions have been added by Strong, but his calendar pages bear no resemblance to those in the present Bickerstaff issue. The latter are, however exact duplicates of those in An astronomical diary, or almanack, for 1785, by Eben W. Judd, printed by the publishers of the present issue, and are from the same type. It may be presumed, then, that Judd is the author of the present almanac, and that he consulted the work of others in preparing his own, which may then be thought of as an early derivative effort.

An element of mystery persists, from the fact that Judd's two almanacs, the present Bickerstaff version and the one issued simultaneously under his own name, contain eclipse notes dissimilar in both their calculations and their wording. The explanation may lie in an effort by the publisher to increase the salability of the present production by associating it with the work of established almanac calculators. Hence also the use of the Bickerstaff pseudonymn--which Strong, incidentally, began using in an almanac published at Hartford by Nathaniel Patten for this same year.

Advertised in the Connecticut courant, Hartford, Nov. 9, 1784.

Signatures: [A]⁴ B-C⁴.

Evans 18873

Trumbull, J.H. Connecticut, 90

Drake, M. Almanacs, 366