The Almanacks of Mary Moody Emerson: A Scholarly Digital Edition is a collaboration between Noelle A. Baker, Sandra Harbert Petrulionis, and the staff of the Women Writers Project (WWP). Together, we seek to transcribe, edit, and encode the Almanacks for publication in Women Writers Online (WWO), the WWP’s collection of early modern women’s texts.
Mary Moody Emerson (1774–1863) was a self-educated scholar, theologian, and author who kept throughout her life a series of handmade manuscript booklets she called “Almanacks.” Spanning over one thousand pages, the Almanacks represent multiple genres, including commonplace books, spiritual and philosophical diaries, poetry, original essays, genealogies, letters, prayers, commemorative parcels, graphic texts, and a booklet that re-imagines the generic features of the horoscope, classical epic, and dramatic dialogue. Emerson’s subjects range from theology, philosophy, literary criticism, and science, to war, imperialism, and slavery.