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 first
time. 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.
- ISBN10 0198717660
- ISBN13 9780198717669
- Publish Date 23 February 2017
- Publish Status Active
- Publish Country GB
- Imprint Oxford University Press
- Format Hardcover
- Pages 240
- Language English