The mind of the book : pictorial title pages 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 Chaucers Works in 1532 through Bacons Instauratio Magna in 1620 Dickens The Mystery of Edwin Drood in 1870 and arriving back at Chaucer with Edward Burnes Joness illustrated title page for the Works of 1896.