Poor Richard improved: being an almanack and ephemeris ... for the year of our Lord 1783 ... Fitted to the latitude of forty degrees, and a meridian of near five hours west from London; but may, without sensible error, serve all the northern colonies. By Richard Saunders, philom.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Briggs, Isaac, 1763-1825

Saunders, Richard.

Language:

English

Physical Description:

[36] p. : ill. ; 12°.

Place of Publication:

Philadelphia : Printed and sold by Hall and Sellers, [1782]

Notes:

"Richard Saunders" is a pseudonym.

The author was Isaac Briggs, then a tutor at Pennsylvania College, who calculated Der Gantz neue verbesserte nord-americanische Calendar for 1783, published at Lancaster. All of the Pennsylvania almanacs for this year have the same calculations and astronomical notes on the calendar pages, with additions and some omissions, as the Nord-Americanische Calendar, which alone names a real person as its author.

Samuel Stearns, the Massachusetts calculator, states: "I observed at Philadelphia, in 1783, that a number of almanacks were published from one calculation, under fictitious names, as Father Abraham, Poor Will, Poor Richard, &c.; but could not learn who was the author. The same calculation was also published in the Jersies, under some other name."--The American oracle (New York, 1791), p. 44.

Advertised in the Pennsylvania gazette, Philadelphia, Sept. 25, 1782.

Local Notes:

Library copy: -t.p.

HSP in LCP.

Cited in:

Evans 17716; Drake, M. Almanacs, 10151