Psalms - London, 1656 - The First Book of Pslams that was Printed in England - the First Year that Jews Lived in ...

Psalms - London, 1656 - The First Book of Pslams that was Printed in England - the First Year that Jews Lived in England - an Extremely Rare Copy
The Hebrew Text of the Psalmes and Lamentations. London, 1656. Printed by the Scottish historian William Robertson ("Now residing and teaching Hebrew in London").
This is the first book of Psalms that was printed in Hebrew in England. It was printed in 1656 - the year when the Jews returned to live in England after being exiled from it for over 300 years. A important item in the history of Hebrew printing in general and the history of the Jews of London in particular.
During the 1650's, Rabbi Menashe Ben Yisrael acted in order to cancel the deportation decree against the Jews of England. After long discussions with government officials, he succeeded in convincing them to allow the return of the Jews to England and in 1655, 300 Sephardic Jews indeed returned. Several months later, the book before us was printed.
The book was printed in several versions, all of them rare. In some of them, the text appears in Hebrew and English column by column; in others, only the Hebrew text appears. Some are vowelized; others are not. In the copy before us, the text is in Hebrew only and vowelized. This version is the rarest of the versions that had been printed, is not listed by the Bibliography of the Hebrew Book and does not appear in libraries in Israel!
At the beginning of the book, an English essay (three leaves) by the editor (and his translator in other versions) William Robertson, who refers to its translation into Hebrew. In some of the above versions, this essay does not appear or a different one appears. Th essay in the version before us is dedicated to Jonathan Godard of Oxford (1617-1675).
At the end of the book, "postscript to the text" - a lingual essay (ten leaves) by the editor about the vowelizing of the words of the Psalms. The essay is in English with Hebrew words. This essay too does not appear in other versions of the book that we have seen - most likely because the version before us is of the vowelized text.
On the leaves of the binding, many ancient Latin inscriptions (with single Hebrew words) from the time of printing. These leaves are worn.
[6], 151, 11, [1], [19] pp. 10.5x17.5 cm.
Condition: Good. Original worn leather binding. Time stains on some of the leaves.