Kompendiöser Allmanach [sic] auf das Jahr nach Christi Geburt 1804

Augsburg: Hein. Gottl. Blossfeld, 1803. 32mo (73 x 45 mm). [64] pp. Title and calendar pages in red & black. Engraved frontispiece, additional engraved title, and 12 numbered engraved plates. Ornamental woodcut on verso of letterpress title. (Upper fore-edges of leaves from January to September clipped.) Original publisher’s engraved stiff wrappers showing Demeter and Athena, later slipcase. Contemporary doodles on recto of frontispiece and lower inner cover.***

A winsome and rare miniature almanac, published for the leap year 1804. The 2-page monthly calendars alternate with 1- or 2-page aphoristic poems or dialogues, illustrated in the engraved plates. Light-hearted, they include a young man moping on the day after Carnival (February), a rich and a poor man’s preparations for Lent (March),a sulking woman cajoled by her beau (April), a woman lolling in bed reading on a summer morning (June), a boy outside in a thunderstorm (July), a hunter (October), and a foolish scholar and poet (Nov. and Dec.) The last few pages contain lunar and weather predictions (oddly for only March to September) and eclipses, and Augsburg city gate openings and closings.

The obscure publisher Blossfeld is identified as a bookbinder in the imprint. Either this was the only year of publication of this almanac, which was unknown to the German almanac bibliographers Lanckoronska and Rümann, or no copies of other years survive. OCLC and KVK together give 3 German locations. (Inventory #: 4409)