In the last three decades of his life, Hokusai, the renowned 19th century Japanese artist, produced his greatest works of art. Among them are the prints intended to accompany the One Hundred Poets, or Hyakunin Isshu (literally, "One Hundred People, One Poem Each"), a body of literature that has been an integral part of Japanese art and culture since the mid-13th century. In his lifetime, however, Hokusai only completed 27 prints for the series, and until recently, his designs and drawings for 62 other images have been ignored. This volume reproduces all 89 of the extant images in this remarkable series for the first time, displaying the range of the artist ́s pictorial imagination and powers of invention. The author examines these 89 works within Hokusai ́s oeuvre as a whole, and explains the importance of the One Hundred Poets anthology within Japanese cultural life. His commentaries on each of the images offer a detailed summary of the poetry, as well as an interpretation of the illustrations, providing a new appreciation for Hokusai ́s genius as an artist and illustrator. -- Metropolitan Museum of Art website.