MENOLOGION or, an Ephemeris of the Coelestial Motions, for the Year of Our Lord MDCCIV. Being Bissextile or Leap-Year.

London: T. Ilive for the Company of Stationers. 1704.

Frontispiece portrait of W. Cookson. Small 8vo. 155x95mm. Unpaginated. [pp.48]. JISC Library Hub records four copies.

A collection of sixteen almanacks, all for the year 1704 by many of the leading compilers including John Wing, Francis Moore and Poor Robin. Bound for Queen Anne in black morocco, upper and lower covers with double fillet border with crowned Royal Monogram "A.R" framed by a pair of feathers in each corner. Blind stamped with the royal arms on upper cover and in three places on lower cover. Four raised bands, compartments with crowned monogram and feathers. All edges gilt, marbled endpapers. Titles printed in red and black. Each almanac is marked with a (contemporary) tipped-in vellum strip (serving as a bookmark) inscribed with the surname of the author. All of the almanacs are rare, some noted in only two institutions and many unrecorded in the British Library. Apart from some worming in two of the almanacs and browning elsewhere, this is a very good collection in an excellent royal binding. How seriously Queen Anne studied almanacs we cannot say but clearly they were viewed as a useful source of government revenue as in 1712 they were caught by the imposition of stamp duty on newspapers and periodicals.