{"product_id":"the-royal-kalendar-and-rider-s-british-merlin-for-1803-wellesley-nelson-cornwallis","title":"The Royal Kalendar and Rider’s British Merlin for 1803 - Wellesley, Nelson, Cornwallis","description":"\u003cp data-start=\"92\" data-end=\"434\"\u003e\u003cstrong data-start=\"92\" data-end=\"111\"\u003eROYAL KALENDAR.\u003c\/strong\u003e \u003cem data-start=\"112\" data-end=\"239\"\u003eThe Royal Kalendar: or, Complete and Correct Annual Register, for England, Scotland, Ireland, and America, for the Year 1803.\u003c\/em\u003e London: printed for J. Debrett and others, 1803. Bound with \u003cstrong data-start=\"300\" data-end=\"320\"\u003eRIDER, Cardanus.\u003c\/strong\u003e \u003cem data-start=\"321\" data-end=\"381\"\u003eRider’s British Merlin: For the Year of Our Lord God 1803.\u003c\/em\u003e London: printed for the Company of Stationers, 1803.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-start=\"436\" data-end=\"701\"\u003eThe 1803 Royal Kalendar and Rider’s British Merlin, in contemporary red morocco, with early military ownership. Small octavo, approx. 6.5 x 4 inches, contemporary red morocco, gilt floral border to boards, gilt spine compartments, marbled endpapers, gilt edges.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-start=\"703\" data-end=\"1594\"\u003eA richly informative Georgian pocket reference, combining \u003cem data-start=\"761\" data-end=\"781\"\u003eThe Royal Kalendar\u003c\/em\u003e with \u003cem data-start=\"787\" data-end=\"811\"\u003eRider’s British Merlin\u003c\/em\u003e. These annuals were practical working books, giving a ready guide to government, Parliament, the peerage, army and navy lists, public offices, courts, markets, chronology, coinage, heraldry, roads, fairs and useful tables. Rider’s \u003cem data-start=\"1043\" data-end=\"1059\"\u003eBritish Merlin\u003c\/em\u003e also preserves the older almanac tradition, including seasonal and astrological material, with advice on diet, health and temperament, alongside dates of markets and practical information for daily life. Cardanus Rider is often said, though probably wrongly, to have been the pseudonym of Richard Saunders, medical practitioner and astrologer, a member of the circle of William Lilly. Rider’s \u003cem data-start=\"1453\" data-end=\"1469\"\u003eBritish Merlin\u003c\/em\u003e first appeared in 1653 and continued annually into the nineteenth century. \u003cem data-start=\"1545\" data-end=\"1565\"\u003eThe Royal Kalendar\u003c\/em\u003e was first published in 1767.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-start=\"1596\" data-end=\"2399\"\u003eThis 1803 volume is especially evocative for its moment. Arthur Wellesley appears here before he was the Duke of Wellington, then a rising Major-General in India. In that same year he won the Battle of Assaye during the Second Anglo-Maratha War, the victory which first made his military reputation. Viscount Nelson is listed in the House of Peers, already Britain’s greatest naval hero after Cape St Vincent, the Nile and Copenhagen; in 1803, as war with Napoleonic France resumed, he returned to Mediterranean command, beginning the campaign that would culminate at Trafalgar. Charles Cornwallis appears among the Marquises, a major imperial figure, remembered for Yorktown but later Governor-General of India, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, and recent negotiator of the Peace of Amiens.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-start=\"2401\" data-end=\"2623\"\u003eEarly ownership inscription “Lieutenant Grosvenor,” likely Thomas Grosvenor, officer in the Coldstream Guards, later General and MP, linking this copy directly to the military and parliamentary world recorded in its pages.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-start=\"2625\" data-end=\"2886\" data-is-last-node=\"\" data-is-only-node=\"\"\u003eCondition: in its original contemporary red morocco binding, rubbed and worn at extremities, with joints and spine showing age, but attractive and sound. Contents age-toned with occasional marks; early pencil and ink inscriptions to front blanks. A compact, handsome and historically resonant Regency annual.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Royal Kalendar; Rider, Cardanus","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":53076770816267,"sku":null,"price":600.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0794\/7848\/9355\/files\/20260426_073139050_iOS.jpg?v=1777307895","url":"https:\/\/www.archbooks.co.uk\/products\/the-royal-kalendar-and-rider-s-british-merlin-for-1803-wellesley-nelson-cornwallis","provider":"Arch Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}