Hyam Isaacs was born in 1780 as Avraham Chaim Isaacs. He married Amelia Woolf in 1805 at the Great Synagogue; the couple had five children. The whole family converted to Christianity in 1814.

After his conversion Isaacs published a few works extolling his newly found Christian beliefs - this work being the first, followed by A solemn and affectionate Address to the Jews, clearly demonstrating... that Jesus Christ is the only and true Messiah in 1835, a second edition of the Ceremonies in 1838, and The Awakening of the Jews from Their Slumbers: Together with Traditionary Tales, Etc in 1842.
In 1847 Isaacs committed suicide at the age of 69. Since he was also a prominent patent inventor his death and the coroner's inquest were covered by the local newspapers:

'On Saturday last an Inquest was taken before John Warren, Esq., Coroner for Exeter, at the Royal Oak, Milk-street, on the body of Hyam Isaacs, between 60 and 70 years of age, who some years ago acquired no small notoriety from being paraded about at religious meetings as a converted Jew, and since which he appears to have lived comfortably without following any business; and about three weeks since returned to this city from Southampton. He had invented a means for preventing accidents from collision on railways, and also an improvement of the buffers, but of which – (as has happened to many others before him,) – the world does not appear to have thought so highly as himself. This preyed on his spirits, and under circumstances of excitement on Saturday morning, he swallowed prussic acid with which he had furnished himself, and life was soon extinct. The Jury returned a verdict of "Destroyed himself while labouring under temporary insanity".'

First edition. 8vo, (230 x 145 mm); contemporary calf-backed boards with gilt label to spine, edges and corners rubbed; occasional browning and staining to pages; 434 pp.

Roth, Magna Bibliotheca Anglo-Judaica B18, 44.