Almanac

A book or table containing a calendar of days, weeks and months, to which are added astronomical or other data. Its use dates back at least to the Alexandrian Greeks. The Roman almanac was the fasti – days on which business could be transacted. The earliest of which we have concise record is that of Solomon Jarchus, 1150 A.D.. Purbach published one from 1450-6. His pupil Regiomontanus issues the first printed almanac in 1475. The most outstanding almanac maker of the Middle Ages was Nostradamus. All English almanacs were prophetic until the year 1828; and until 1834 the stamp duty was 1s.3d. per copy. The first almanac in the U.S. was issued in 1639 by William Pierce. It was exceeded in popularity by Poor Richard’s Almanac (1732-57) issued by Benjamin Franklin. Watkins Almanac, issued since 1868, has an annual circulation of upward of two million copies. The chief Astrological Almanacs of the present epoch are ‘Raphael’s’, first published in 1820, and ‘Zadkiel’s’, first published in 1830. All governments now issue an Ephemeris and a Nautical almanac. See ‘Ephemeris’.

DeVore, Nicholas. Encyclopedia of Astrology. New York: Philosophical Library, 1947.