(Tobacco) Hamer, John (editor, printer and publisher). The Smoker's Text-Book. Leeds: The Editor, 7, Briggate, Leeds, 1863. FIRST EDITION.
64mo - 2-3/4" x 2-1/4". viii, 112 pp. Preceded by an engraved title page. Printed in "Brilliant" micro-typography. Original publisher's brown cloth-covered beveled boards, with titles and a decorative border stamped in gilt to the upper board; spine panel decorated and lettered in gilt; lower board replicates the upper board's decorative border, stamped in blind from the same die. All edges gilt (A.E.G.). Dark brown endpapers.
The structural and surface condition of the volume is VERY GOOD. The original cloth binding remains secure, displaying light, routine rubbing to the gilt elements, spine extremities, and corners. Internally, a small tipped-in leaf facing the front free endpaper exhibits offsetting caused by the adjacent bookplate. The text block is otherwise remarkably fresh, with minor finger-marking restricted to the engraved title page and three isolated, inconspicuous spots of foxing on a single internal leaf.
Provenance: From the library of the prominent American jurist and Shakespearean bibliophile Judge Willis Vickery (1857–1932), with his custom gilt-stamped red morocco bookplate affixed to the front pastedown.
Micro-Typography and Victorian Smoking Culture
This miniature volume represents a tour de force of mid-Victorian micro-typographic printing, conceived, compiled, and executed by Leeds printer John Hamer. The text is set entirely in Brilliant type, a specialized three-point font cast by the Miller & Richard foundry of Edinburgh. At the time of publication, this matrix was celebrated as the smallest functional movable metal type in the world, requiring exceptional presswork to prevent the tiny counters of the letters from filling with ink. A contemporary tipped-in note at the front of the text block explicitly validates this technical achievement for the buyer.
In terms of content, the work is an elegant defense of tobacco consumption, combining prose and verse to celebrate the historical and social attributes of smoking. Hamer dedicated the compilation "To all true smokers, of every land and clime," responding directly to the growing nineteenth-century anti-tobacco movement. The opening essays counter charges of indolence with philosophical pragmatism, asserting that smoking is an innocent relaxation far removed from genuine moral turpitude, and framing it as considerably less injurious than "gluttony, drunkenness, cheating, lying, swearing, high-way robbery, or treason." The text is introduced by a detailed engraved title page rich in smoking iconography, depicting tobacco flora, Middle Eastern nargileh pipes, and a central pair of balance scales wherein a humble smoking pipe outweighs a royal crown.
Bibliographic Context and Institutional Inventory
Due to their diminutively scaled bindings and close association with active smoking environments, copies of The Smoker's Text-Book were highly prone to heat damage, wrapper staining, and structural loss. While the title was later reprinted in larger formats during the late nineteenth century, this genuine 1863 64mo first edition remains a pronounced rarity, particularly when preserving its original beveled cloth and the delicate morocco provenance of a major American collector like Willis Vickery.
The title is recorded in standard tobacco bibliographies, including the Arents Tobacco Collection catalogues. A current global institutional sweep via the OCLC/WorldCat database confirms the scarcity of this initial Leeds imprint, locating only ten copies in permanent public collections worldwide.
A HIGHLY DESIRABLE, STRUCTURALLY UNCOMPROMISED EXAMPLAR OF NINETEENTH-CENTURY MICRO-PRINTING, CONSTITUTING A KEY COMPONENT FOR COMPREHENSIVE COLLECTIONS DEVOTED TO TOBACCOIANA, MEMORANDUM TOY BOOKS, AND THE HISTORY OF METALLIC TYPOGRAPHY.
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