We think that smoking jackets are due to come back in style. We cannot think of anything more relaxed than sitting around our library and holding a book in one hand, while we have smoking materials close at hand. Of course, that is a reminiscence from days gone by, when we did not know so much about the ill-health effects, for now when we contemplate such a scene, we are a little apprehensive about the whole situation, thinking of the future chest x-rays of our lung tissue.

But perhaps genetic engineering or high technology will come to the fore in the future to alleviate our misgivings about inhaling the toxic by-products of tobacco combustion. In the meantime, we think back to Edwardian or Victorian England. Or the re-creations of the era in the old black-and-white films featuring Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce as the characters of Holmes and Dr. Watson, as they would retire to the book-lined study and Holmes would draw on his pipe while cogitating on some recent criminal case.

We have a rare-book section in our library, and we retire with a brandy-snifter from time to time, as conditions permit. For while we lounge about in our own jackets (actually a bathrobe similar to that pictured here with a prominent monogram). The derivation was after the Napoleonic wars, when tobacco from both Turkey and the New World and the more luxurious lifestyle that trade afforded allowed English gentlemen and their friends to seek the solace of a private room. We were watching the Roger Corman film with Ray Milland, just last night and the scene had the men of the family retreating to an after dinner soiree of cigars and brandy. Milland, playing in the Poe drama, "The Premature Burial" was nattily dressed in what appeared to be a red silk jacket with a black satin collar. While he was playing a Victorian-era character obsessed with being buried alive during a fit of "catalepsy", a rather obscure diagnosis resembling a death-like trance where breathing and heart-beat are minimized.

Here is an inexpensive rare book about Nepal, in somewhat used condition, but still a nearly one-of-a-kind addition to know more about this fascinating country visited by thousands every year. We have happened upon a single copy, so if you are a connoisseur of the exotic, this is your one opportunity to purchase a limited edition book.