The textiles historian Terry Satsuki Milhaupt had nearly finished her comprehensive book on kimonos when she committed suicide in 2012. Her widower, Curtis J. Milhaupt, heroically completed her work, “Kimono: A Modern History” (Reaktion Books/University of Chicago Press), and a show of the same title, based on her scholarship, opens on Sept. 27 at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and runs through Jan. 24.

Mr. Milhaupt, a law professor at Columbia, said in an interview that when the book galleys finally arrived, “I burst into tears, mostly from relief.”