This set of 5 books is a treasure trove of information about the history of tobacco. George Arents, Jr. came from a tobacco family going back three generations. In 1895, he began collecting books related to tobacco. Throughout his life, he collected what is believed to be the largest library of tobacco-related materials in existence. In 1944, he donated his collection to the New York Public Library. The NYPL has digitized many materials in the Arents collection, which can be found on their George Arents Collection website.
The contents of the library were reviewed and cataloged by Jerome Brooks and released as the 5-book series Tobacco: Its History Illustrated by the Books, Manuscripts, and Engravings in the Library of George Arents, Jr. between 1937 and 1952. The books are organized by date, starting from the earliest works. For each piece, Brooks gives a summary of the unique or interesting information it contains.
Volume 1 contains a history of tobacco, written by Brooks, that is about 150 pages long. It is one of the most comprehensive and interesting accounts of the history of tobacco I have read. If you want to dive deep, this is an incredibly deep dive. When I read these books, it led me to want to explore many, many more areas of tobacco history than I even knew existed.
Tobacco: Its History Illustrated by the Books, Manuscripts, and Engravings in the Library of George Arents, Jr. can be read for free in a digitized version at the New York Public Library’s Digital Collections website (though it is, admittedly, not very easy to read the digitized version).
The book was released twice that I’m aware of: the original 1937-1952 release by Rosenbach (limited to 300 numbered volumes), and a 2008 reprint edition (limited to 300 numbered volumes). If you’re interested in reading a physical copy, your best bet might be to search for library copies in the WorldCat database.