These two annotated books are of different species, but both are common usages for writing in books the first one , The 1684 Almanac has been used as a note-book, bound with 12 extra pages both before and after the printed text which is interleaved, The original owner has used nearly every one. Almost every entry is a name and an amount , in BPS, mostly for Rents, there are also many expenses fir Bridges, High ways and coal!  I imagine searching the names and dates one could come up with the town!  The Next book is a 1531 Augsburg confession, the owner to this book read very carefully and with pen in hand, identifying quotations and marking theological points of interest, the writer also created a subject index.


380G         Apollo Anglicanus   [edited by Saunders, , Richard,. 1613-1675.]

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  1. Apollo Anglicanus, the English Apollo: assisting all persons in the right understanding of this years revolution, as also of things past, present, and to come. With necessary tables plain and useful. A twofold kalendar, viz. Julian or English, Georgian or forein computations, more plain and full than any other, with the rising and setting of the sun, the nightly rising and setting of the moon, and also her southing. Exactly calculated for every day. … Being bissextile, or leap-year. To which is added short notes, shewing (in a general way) the good and bad days throughout the year: also the moons application to the planets and fixed stars. With calculations of the eclipses, and the quarterly ingresses with many other things both useful and necessary. Calculated according to art, and fitted to the meridian of Leicester, whose latitude in 52 degrees, 41 minutes …

London : printed by M. Clark, for the Company of Stationers, 1684.    $2,200

Octavo, 4 X 6 inches.  First edition  A-B8 9 part II ,A8 . (Quires A-B in red and black.)  This copy has a wonderful binding of DSC_0004
full calf in a wallet form with a linen? tie almost a foot long.  It is inter-leaved with notes on almost every page and many extra blanks added full of ‘account type ‘entries, the hand is casual if not down right sloppy and annoying to read.          (see the images below)

Richard Saunders” was the seventeenth-century author of Rider’s British Merlin, a popular London almanac which continued to be published throughout the eighteenth century. The The Apollo Anglicanus was a popular astrological almanac, but it was also one of the most intellectual and scientific of the British almanacs, with issues including much on scientific developments, the science behind weather, and so forth. This issue contains a second part which is a crash course on Eclipses and gives up to date predictions of eclipses to come!

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The Apollo Anglicanus was also the model for Benjamin Franklin’s almanacs and the inspiration for his “Poor Richard” pseudonym “Richard Saunders”.  Benjamin Franklin began his own almanac some fifty years after Saunders’ death in 1675. However, Franklin had a wider and more modern understanding of nature than Saunders, as well as a wicked sense of humor. Saunders’ almanac was apparently known well enough in Franklin’s time that Ben found him a worthy pseudonym. Franklin released his own compendium
astronomical predictions, weather lore, helpful information, and now famous quotations under Saunders’ name as Poor Richard’s Almanack in 1732.

Wing (CD-Rom, 1996), A2354     Estc locates ONLY6 Copies in N.America

Folger Shakespeare, Harvard University, Henry E. Huntington Library, New York Public Library, University of Texas, Yale .DSC_0006

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714G      Melanchthon, Philip (1497-1560), Luther, Martin .  (1483-1546)

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Confessio fidei exhibita invictiss. Imp. Carolo V. Caefari Aug. in Comiciis Auguftae. Anno M.D.XXX.     Addita est Apologia Co(n)fessionis  Psalm. 119 Et loquebar de te stimonijs tuis in conspectu

Wittenberg: Georg Rhau, 1531.      $22,000

Octavo, 5.25 x 3.5. This edition is an impression of the “editio princeps” printed in the same year. a-d8, e4,9e4 blank and present) f-n8, A-P8, Q4, Q4 blank and present.

The title page has a woodcut illustration. This is bound in full modern calf over wooden boards in an antique style, it is a very nice copy with annotations on every page.

DSC_0011The Augsburg Confession is “the oldest and most authoritative of the Lutheran creeds,” and a major historical document, in which the revolution of Martin Luther assumed organized political action and permanently changed the religious and national identity of Europe. “It was drafted by Melanchthon, on the basis of Luther’s Marburg, Schwabach, and Torgau articles, and bore the signature of seven German princes….On 25 June, 1530, copies of it, in Latin and German, were presented to Charles V, at the diet of Augsburg, and the German version of it was read aloud before the secular and ecclesiastical Estates of the Empire. Charles retained his Latin copy which he brought with him to Spain, giving the other into the custody of the Archbishop of Mainz.”

In a remarkable calm and able “Answer” to the Confession, controversialists such as Eck, Wimpina, and Cochlaeus analyze the Confession, giving praise and censure where either is DSC_0010due. Melanchthon retorted with an “apologia” which Lutherans generally regard as their second symbolic book; Charles refused to accept it, because of the violent language against the Catholic Church. (summarized from the Catholic Encyclopedia)
“Although the emperor prohibited the printing of the evangelical confession without his special permission, during the diet six German editions and one in Latin were published….Their inaccuracy and incorrectness induced Melanchthon to prepare an edition to which he added the Apology. Thus originated the so-called editio princeps of the Augustana and Apology, which was published in the spring of 1531. This edition was regarded as the authentic reproduction of the faith professed before the emperor and empire.” (Schaff-Herzog)

This is the back of the title to the Apologia with an index!

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