[a] The book details the then-modern bacon and ham industry beginning with the use of the pig breeds, meat processing and the distribution and pricing of cuts with a focus on the United Kingdom.

[1] Despite having entered the public domain, the book is rare and collectible and generated interest for its "unparalleled" anatomical details of pigs found in its fold-out pages.

He was also a Trustee, Member of Council, Chairman of Finance Committee, and honorary Examiner to the Institute of Certificated Grocers.

[2][3] This book's target audience is not the common consumer of pig meat, but the grocer who would sell the products to the masses.

[3] The fourth chapter discusses the current practices of the bacon factory, including the stages in which the pigs are received, killed, branded and processed.

[2] Bacon and Hams was first published in 1917 by the Institute of Certificated Grocers and printed by Richard Clay & Sons of London.

[9] The book was referred to with approbation by the Saskatchewan Overseas Livestock Marketing Commission which described it as an "admirable and important treatise".

[10] The website Cooking Issues featured the obscure book, creating an interactive Adobe Flash animation of Nicholls's "unparalleled fold-out pig".