The style reached its height in the Edo period (1603 to 1867). Thanks to woodblock printing techniques, the quantity and quality increased dramatically. There were repeated governmental attempts to suppress shunga, the first of which was an edict issued by the Tokugawa shogunate in 1661 banning, among other things, erotic books known as (literally "lewdness books"). While other genres covered by the edict, such as works criticising "daimyōs" or samurai, were driven underground by this edict, shunga continued to be produced with little difficulty.