Some important news about Clarissa

Most of the hundreds of letters in 'Clarissa' are given dates. Most of which are of the form 'Friday, August 25th'. Year always omitted.

This morning I was curious about which year this might be and so ask Bing. Starting from reference 3, I work my way back from the years of publication 1747 and 1748 to the year 1738. I learn that August 25th fell on a Friday in both 1738 and 1749. I don't think that the book would have been set a year or so in the future when publication started in 1747, so my guess is that the book was set about ten years before it was published. Presumably readers at that time knew all this.

The timetables at reference 1 are provided by the excellent people at reference 2, from whom I also take positions of the moon and the planets. While my start point, reference 3, was provided by the Great Britain Philatetic Society. It seems that stamp people like to know what day of the week the item on which their stamp came was posted. Not the same problem as mine, but a relation.

I imagine that it would be reasonably fiddly to compute these calendars for myself in Microsoft Excel, so I shall not attempt to check them. Not a good use of my valuable time.

Reference 1:https://www.timeanddate.com/calendar/print.html?country=9&cols=4&df=1&year=1738.

Reference 2: https://www.timeanddate.com/.

Reference 3: https://www.gbps.org.uk/tools/calendars.php.

Reference 4: https://www.gbps.org.uk/.

Reference 5: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1738. The year, as it happens, which saw the execution of the Suss noticed at reference 6. Also the year in which one Rémy Martin was granted a license to distill liquor by King Louis XV of France.

Reference 6: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2021/07/two-kinds-of-cheese.html.