Etrennes: A New Post for a New Year

Perhaps it is a fool's errand to think that I might turn over a new leaf (a leaf of a book, naturally) and post a bit more frequently in the new year. So here's a little item from my collection, one of those occasions where a single book fits into more than one of my personal collections.

The collections in question are almanacs, a category of collecting that has not been something I intentionally set out to collect, but I've happened to get enough interesting examples that I have had to admit it's a collection. And since the French Etrennes refers to the New Year, it seemed appropriate to show this one off today. Titled Etrennes du Moment ou Almanach des Sans-Culottes (and dated 1793), it is a wonderful artifact from the early years of the French Revolution. I say "scarce": WorldCat seems to show only a handful of copies of this title in institutional collections, and all of them have a Paris imprint. The entries in Grand-Carteret's bibliography also seem to all be Paris editions; the present copy, from Annonay, may well be from an unrecorded edition.

Although it has been damaged by water and has its losses, I also love this book for its use of printer's waste in the binding, another one of my collecting areas. With some difficulty, one can trace this waste to a scarce publication by the printer of the almanac; it seems likely then, that this is the original binding as it left the printer's shop. 

Both humble, unusual, and a survivor: as I hope we all might manage the same after the passing of another year.