Riders 1671. Brittish Merlin: bedeckt with many delightful varieties and useful verities, fitting the longitude, and latitude of all capacities within the islands of Great Brittains monarchy and chronological observations of principal note, to this year 1671, being the 3d. after bissextile, or leap-year. With notes of husbandry, physick, fairs; and marts, directions, and tables to all necessary uses. Made and compiled for the benefit of his country by Riders, Cardanus

Duodecimo, 4.75 X 2.75 inches . First Edition A6, B12, C6 Riders British Merlin which first appeared in 1656 and continued to be published well into the nineteenth century. Riders was published under the control of the Stationers' Company which maintained a virtual monopoly over the lucrative almanac trade until the eighteenth century. The Company aimed to procure the maximum profit possible from these publications by keeping their printing processes efficient and at minimal costs: the fact that the almanacs were produced and therefore sold cheaply ensured that they were affordable to the masses. That is not to say that they were designed exclusively for the poor; users of almanacs in fact belonged to every social group, and the great majority of purchasers would have been yeomen, husbandmen and artisans. By the eighteenth century the efforts of the Stationers' Company to maintain profits meant cutting costs which resulted in bad printing: the paper used was thin and cheap (often leading to "show through" from the verso, as in the title-page here) and the printing was often blurred and smudged. By this time, the contents were somewhat formulaic, with much of the data being reproduced exactly from year to year. The opening displayed here gives an indication of the kind of practical information supplied by the almanac. Before the calendar proper begins, there are several pages of miscellaneous information, much of which is geared to aiding business calculations. Other data includes a table of kings, a geographical description of the world and A computation of the most remarkable passages of the times, from the creation to the year 1701 where it is noted, for example, that 3994 years have elapsed since Noah's Flood. In its function as a valuable reference book, the almanac would usually also contain substantial medical notes. Illustrated here is the "zodiacal" man - a figure, unchanged since classical times, which shows the organs and parts of the body controlled by various signs of the zodiac.