A comprehensive survey of the history of Japanese woodblock prints, This work is illustrated with an overview of social conditions, printing techniques, artists, engravers, printers and details of the prints and subjects.

"Hokusai is perhaps the Asian artist best known in the West. His influence has extended from the Impressionists to later modern art and even to commercial design. A few of his works are so frequently reproduced that they are almost as familiar as the face of the Mona Lisa. Yet the "Great Wave" and the "Red Fuji" from the Thirty-six views of Mt. Fuji represent only a tiny fraction of Hokusai's output. The pages of the Sketches, with their teeming humanity...