Considering the enormous popularity of Japanese woodblock prints, it is curious that there have been so few reference works offering comprehensive information on all the areas of knowledge involved. The first to attempt a systematic overview of the field in English was not published until 1978 -- Richard Lane's "Images from the Floating World."
There are reasons for this late appearance of a publication with such cyclopedic ambitions. One was the late recognition in Japan of woodblock prints as a field of art, and therefore of being worthy of attention in any art-history curriculum. Another was the difficult level of the language of the source material -- which even today poses problems for scholars. Prints were often, therefore, in the hands of collectors and dealers who were unable to read and interpret the sources.
The lack of an early major reference work could also be attributed to the paucity of the material itself. Woodblock prints, though printed in the thousands, were never intended for museums or encyclopedias.