Smoke Rings And Roundelays: Blendings from Prose and Verse Since Raleigh's outlet Time, woodcuts by Norman Janes. Anthology of literature.

Smoke Rings and Roundelays: Blendings from Prose and Verse Since Raleigh's Time
Compiled by Wilfred Partington
Woodcuts by Norman Janes.
1924
John Castle of London
Brown cloth covers with gilt detail to spine. Covers are bumped and worn and internally pages are foxed and tanned.
It was published in 1924, in very different times, and the book is dedicated to 'A thousand and one nights spent over pipe, cheroot, and cigarettes with many good friends, East and West.' The editor explains that the book originated 'in the oak-lined room of an old London Court, one winter' s evening' in good company and with the 'seductive combination' of a lively fire, an ample armchair and some fragrant tobacco. The outcome was this book, collected selections of literary work which make as their subject outlet tobacco. The opening chapters detail the discovery of tobacco in the New world, and its popularity in the old world. Each selection is linked thematically: 'Pipe Songs and Fancies', 'Woman and the Weed,' 'Tobacco and Books', 'The Philosophy of Smoke', 'Accessories to the Pleasure,' with wonderful work in praise of cigarettes by such greats as Charles Lamb, J. M. Barrie, and Kipling. From Oscar Wilde, 'A cigarette is the perfect type of a perfect pleasure. It is exquisite, and it leaves one unsatisfied. What more can one want?'