London Almanack for the Year of Christ 1792

The Worshipful Company of Stationers and Newspaper Makers, generally known as the Stationers’ Company, is one of the livery companies of the City of London. Its members were chiefly involved in the visual and graphic communication trades: printing, stationery, office supplies, advertising, and the publishing of books, newspapers and periodicals. The Company issued its almanacks every year — small booklets intended for polite society, giving them the essential information of the ephemeris. These were printed under the Company’s supervision, then entrusted to binders who covered them in a delicate small leather binding, as here.

These publications gave rise to the great fashion for “bijou almanacs,” smaller still and more luxurious, produced in London and Paris from the 1810s onward. “Series of entirely engraved almanacs of quite exceptional quality, true miracles of engraving, illustration, binding and presentation […]. The illustrations show portraits of sovereigns and statesmen, biblical figures, views of buildings or landscapes, etc. […]. Their presentation reaches a high degree of sophistication, issued in delicately colored and stamped soft boards, in elegant and splendidly decorated morocco or vellum bindings, sometimes protected by matching slipcases” (Bondy, in Livres miniatures).