The present paper is a preliminary study endeavouring to find some possible interpretations, both cultural and historical, for the 17thcentury decline in publishing popular literature. The basis of this preliminary study is those few extant copies of popular books published by the Heltai press in the 17th century which are housed by the Special Collections Department of the Lucian Blaga Central University Library in Cluj.
This outline has the purpose of putting forward a problem, namely that something happened after the turn of the 16th-17th centuries which radically cut down the number of such works. The paper concludes that, besides economic reasons, this process was rather explained by a complex set of social-historical reasons (religious wars and disputes, influencing both the general “mood” and interest of readers and writers alike), an assumption which indicates the direction of further research.
