Manuscript “Conversations” with Almanack Readers

During her lifetime, Mary Moody Emerson circulated her manuscripts among her family, friends, and correspondents. She commonly dispersed Almanack “leaves,” or pages, with letters and also bequeathed and loaned whole Almanacks to her intimates. Evidence of these practices of manuscript dispersal include Almanack leaves in her correspondence at the Houghton Library at Harvard University, and the evidence of other hands in her Almanacks, some of which represent “conversations” between Emerson and her Almanack readers.

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