The Mind of the Book : Pictorial Title-Pages

Alastair Fowler presents a fascinating study of title-pages printed in England from the early modern era to the nineteenth century, exploring their place in the History of the Book for the first time. He illuminates key features of title-page design and presents 16 illustrations of significant title-pages with commentaries, from Chaucer to Dickens.

Alastair Fowler presents a fascinating study of title-pages printed in England from the early modern period to the nineteenth century. He examines pictorial title-pages in the context of the History of the Book for the firsttime. The first part of The Mind of the Book explores the forerunner of the frontispiece in late antiquity; the use of frames and borders in title-pages; portraits; printers'' devices; emblematic title-pages of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, especially attending to explanatory verses and arcane features such as chronograms; title-pages as ''memory prompts''; and eighteenth and nineteenth-century title-pages, tracing ''the rejection of emblematic and symbolic features and the introduction of unadorned, unpictorial, title-pages''. The second part of the book presents illustrations of sixteen significant title-pages with commentaries, ranging from Chaucer''s Works in 1532 through Bacon''s Instauratio Magna in 1620, Dicken''s The Mystery of Edwin Drood in 1870, and arriving back at Chaucer with Edward Burnes-Jones''s illustrated title-page for the Works of 1896.