1789 UK 'The Ladies' Diary or Woman's Almanack" + "Supplement"

$230.00 CAD

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Two 1789 English pamphlets bound together. First is The Ladie's Dairy : Woman's Almanack, which apart from more standard items, includes many articles related to advanced mathematics. Second is the much scarcer Supplement for the same year. It also includes scientific and mathematical queries.

#1 Almanack

The Ladies’ Diary or Woman’s Almanack For the Year of Our Lord 1789…Designed for the Use and Diversion of the FAIR-SEX
 
The Eighty-sixth ALMANACK printed of this type
 
LONDON
Printed for the Company of Stationers, and Sold by Robert Horsfield, at their Hall in Ludgate-Street
 
[Price Stitched Nine-Pence]

  

Image of Queen Charlotte, wife of George III, and stanza below praising her.

48 pages (note that last page number printed upside down).

#2 Supplement

 

SUPPLEMENT TO THE LADIES’ DIARY FOR THE YEAR 1789
 
Containing DISSERTATIONS on ECLIPSES, TRANSITS of MERCURY, and the COMET that is expected to appear this YEAR…QUERIES...QUESTIONS…NEW CHARADES...QUESTIONS for the Exercise of young TYROS.
 
By the DIARY AUTHOR
 
[Price Six-Pence]

 

48 pages 

Marbled soft cover. Spine missing bit at top, Some corner folds. 

16 x 10 cm.

 

Author/Creator: Charles Hutton (1737-1823)

The Ladies' Diary: or, Woman's Almanack appeared annually in London from 1704 to 1841 after which it was succeeded by The Lady's and Gentleman's Diary. It featured material relating to calendars etc. including sunrise and sunset times and phases of the moon, as well as important dates (eclipses, holidays, school terms, etc.), and a chronology of remarkable events.

The subtitle indicated its serious purpose: "Containing New Improvements in ARTS and SCIENCES, and many entertaining PARTICULARS: Designed for the USE AND DIVERSION OF THE FAIR SEX." These included riddles (called enigmas), rebuses, charades, scientific queries, and mathematical questions. A typical volume in the series included answers submitted by readers to problems posed the previous year and a set of new problems, nearly all proposed by readers. Both puzzle and answer (revealed the following year) were often in verse. Each cover featured a picture of a prominent English woman.

WIKIPEDIA