The Seventeenth Century Hebrew Book is an encyclopedic, bibliographic work describing books printed with Hebrew letters in that century. It records and describes the authors, publishers, and printers of Hebrew books, as well as the books themselves. Similar to the author's other work, The Sixteenth Century Hebrew Book, it covers the gamut of Hebrew literature, encompassing liturgical works, Bibles, commentaries, Talmud, Mishnah, halakhic codes, kabbalistic works, and fables. There are 691 entries comprised of a descriptive text page, background on the author, a description of the book's contents and physical makeup, all of which are accompanied by reproductions of the title or sample pages. There is an extensive introduction with an overview of Hebrew printing in the seventeenth century, as well as detailed back matter. It is a necessary work for bibliographers, historians, and students of Jewish literature.
Marvin J. Heller writes books and articles on Hebrew printing and bibliography. His Printing the Talmud: A History of the Individual Treatises Printed from 1700 to 1750 (Brill, Leiden, 1999), and The Sixteenth Century Hebrew Book: An Abridged Thesaurus (Brill, Leiden, 2004) were, respectively, recipients of the 1999 and 2004 Research and Special Libraries Division Award of the Association of Jewish Libraries for Bibliography.
