Five volumes (34 × 24.5 cm), I (Imprints 1507-1615, 1937): xvi, 544 pp., including colour frontispiece, numerous illustrations printed with the text (7 printed in two or more colours). II (Imprints 1615-1698, 1938): xii, 564 pp., including frontispiece “View of the Library at ‘Hillbrook’, Rye, New York”), numerous illustrations printed with the text (10 printed in two colours). III (Imprints 1698-1783, 1941): viii, 546 pp., plus colour frontispiece (folding), numerous illustrations printed with the text (17 printed in two colours). IV (Imprints 1784-1942, 1943): (12) 386 pp., including colour frontispiece, numerous illustrations printed with the text (1 printed in two colours). “A synoptical chart [illustrating the chief divisions of the history of tobacco] has been placed at the inner back cover” (inserted in a pocket). Printed slip tipped-in at end: “In the Colophon the name of Richard Ellis was inadvertently omitted. He should also [with Jerome E. Brooks] be given credit for designing this book”. Printed card loosely inserted: “Such a large amount of additional material has been included in TOBACCO it will be necessary to publish a fifth volume containing the Index and notes on recent acquisitions. This volume is in preparation and will be sent without additional charge to those who have subscribed to a set of TOBACCO. May 1st, 1944”. V (Index, 1952): (8) 328 pp., including frontispiece portrait of George Arents, Jr. The five volumes uniformly bound in publisher’s orange cloth, bevelled boards, morocco lettering-pieces.

Offered with [Supplement] Tobacco: a catalogue of the books, manuscripts and engravings acquired since 1942 in the Arents Tobacco Collection at the New York Public Library. New York: New York Public Library, 1961-1969. Ten parts bound in two volumes.

A fine, complete set of the catalogue of the private library of George Arents Jr (1875-1960), privately printed in New York between 1937 and 1943 in an edition of 300 copies (this set is number 292). In 1944, the collection was received by the New York Public Library, and in 1952, an index volume (names of authors and subjects) was prepared by the New York Public Library. Ten supplements describing later additions to the collection were compiled by Arents Librarian Sarah Augusta Dickson and Curator Perry O’Neil from 1958 to 1969; subsequent acquisitions have been catalogued electronically. There are 3956 individual, catalogued entries (4235 separate, physical items). “Although the collection is devoted to tobacco and includes almost every important work dealing with the subject, it also contains many historical, literary, and artistic works in which tobacco appears only incidentally” (NYPL). ¶ Faultless set.