Title Pages in Books
The title page (as distinct from the cover) is one of the most important parts of the "front matter" or "preliminaries" of a book, as the data on it and its verso (together known as the "title leaf") are used to establish the "title proper and usually, though not necessarily, the statement of responsibility and the data relating to publication". This determines the way the book is cited in library catalogs and academic references.
Ideally the title page shows the title of the work, the person or body responsible for its intellectual content, the place of publication, the name of the publisher and the year of publication. Particularly in paperback editions it may contain a shorter title than the cover or lack a descriptive subtitle. Further information about the publication of the book, including its copyright, is frequently printed on the verso of the title page. Also often included there are the ISBN and a printers key, also known as the number line, which indicates the printing status.
The first printed books or incunabula did not have title pages. The text would begin on the first page, and the book would have to be identified by the initial words or incipit.
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Famous quotes containing the words title, pages and/or books:
“A familiar name cannot make a man less strange to me. It may be given to a savage who retains in secret his own wild title earned in the woods. We have a wild savage in us, and a savage name is perchance somewhere recorded as ours.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Perhaps these pages are more particularly addressed to poor students. As for the rest of my readers, they will accept such portions as apply to them.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“If some books are deemed most baneful and their sale forbid, how, then, with deadlier facts, not dreams of doting men? Those whom books will hurt will not be proof against events. Events, not books, should be forbid.”
—Herman Melville (1819–1891)