Between the years 1814 and 1878 there was published in Japan a series of woodblock-printed volumes entitled "Hokusai Manga," or "Hokusai's Sketches from Life," which was destined to be one of the most popular art publications ever issued anywhere in the world. With its rich tapestry of life as i twas lied in the boisterous Tokyo of the day and its magical evocation of the beauties of the Japanese countryside, it was an immediate best0seller in Japan, and then, upon the West's discovery of Japanese art, went on to win the hearts of people everywhere. While the critics have often disagreed on the artistic value of the "Manga" - which judgments ranging all the way from "a major art treasure" and "worth of Rembrandt" to "an outpouring of sketches lacking organization or meaning" - the art lovers of the world, no less than the man in the street (for whom Hokusai worked), have felt the supreme vitality and life-loving force of the sketches and have always delighted in the fifteen volumes of the book. It is from this amazing book - amazing both in execution and breadth of scope - that the 187 full-page plates and the hundreds of text decorations of the present volume have been assembled. For many years now the sketchbooks have been available only in costly or tattered form or else in inferior reproductions. Here, at last, they are given worthy format - with many original volumes examined to find the best pages for photographing and every effort made to reproduce the actual feel of the originals. The charmingly soft line of the woodblock printing may well come as a surprise to readers more accustomed to the mechanical sharpness of most modern book illustration. Two plates printed from actual wood blocks provide a standard for judging the faithfulness of the three-color offset technique used for the rest of the plates. (2/5 paragraphs from book jacket)