Virginia & North Carolina Almanac for 1809 (Somervell & Conrad).

• imprint_number: 1808.081
• title: The Maryland & North Carolina almanac, for the year 1809; being the first after bissextile or leap year. Adapted to the latitude and meridian of Petersburg. Calculated by Benj'n. Bates. ...
• sequence_number: 81
• year: 1808
• place_issued: Petersburg
• issuing_press: For Somervell & Conrad by Seaton Grantland
• author: Bates, Benjamin (1769-1812).
• notes: This title is part of a joint publishing project that produced five variants of the Bates almanac for 1809, continuing an alliance begun the year before; Richmond job-printer Seaton Grantland was engaged by bookseller Robert Gray of Alexandria (1808.065 & 1808.066), publisher John Dickson of Petersburg (1808.041) and booksellers Somervell & Conrad of Petersburg (this item), to print an almanac "published" by each business, as well as one for himself (1808.040). All five almanacs share a common thirty-six page sextodecimo core, with a ten page addenda added to the end of the two variants printed for Somervell & Conrad and for Grantland; the typography in the common core is essentially identical, except for publisher-specific text changes to the title and imprint on the title page, and for differing advertisements at the bottom of page 36 (in this item, that notice is for Seaton Grantland's press in Richmond); the two forty-eight page editions carry an advertisement for the Somervell & Conrad bookstore on page 46, suggesting that the project was instigated by that Petersburg firm. The joint project appears to have been instigated by the competing almanacs of Peter Cottom and John A. Stewart, who regularly produced multiple variants of a common almanac to sell in their Alexandria and Fredericksburg bookstores, so dominating the Virginia almanac trade.
  A sixth Bates almanac for 1809 was printed by Samuel Pleasants, the Richmond publisher formerly Grantland's master; while the text and tables are identical in content, Pleasants set his edition himself, and so that almanac varies in pagination, format, and length (1808.043).
  The copy filmed by the Early American Imprints Series is imperfect, lacking all after page 44.
  
  
• Related Bios:
  • Michael Conrad
  • Seaton Grantland
  • John Somervell

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