in Design
The order of front matter
Half title, title page, copyright page, dedication, contents. The order of the opening pages is conventional, and the conventions have reasons.
The front matter, also called the preliminaries or prelims, is everything that comes before the main text. It is where a book introduces itself, and it follows a set of conventions that readers rarely think about but notice when they are broken. Publishers and style guides differ in the details, but the broad order is widely shared.
The usual sequence
Half title. The first printed page, a recto, carries only the title of the book, without the author or subtitle. It is a quiet, historical survival from a time when books were sold unbound and the half title protected the title page.
Half title verso. The back of the half title is often blank. It can carry a list of the author’s other books, a series title, or a frontispiece, an illustration facing the title page.
Title page. A recto, with the full title, subtitle, the author’s name and the publisher’s name or imprint. Translators, illustrators or editors may also appear here.
Copyright page. The verso of the title page, carrying the copyright notice, the publisher’s details, the ISBN and other bibliographic and legal information.
Dedication. Usually a recto, often on its own with plenty of white space.
Epigraph. A quotation that sets the tone for the book, usually on a recto. An epigraph can also appear at the start of a part or chapter instead.
Contents. Many novels do without a contents page, but most non-fiction needs one. It traditionally starts on a recto.
Lists of illustrations, maps or tables, where the book has them, follow the contents.
Foreword, preface and acknowledgements. A foreword is written by someone other than the author; a preface is written by the author and explains how or why the book came about. Acknowledgements may appear here, although in many books, especially fiction, they are placed at the back.
Introduction. An introduction can be part of the front matter or the first section of the main text. The deciding question is whether it is essential to the argument. If it is, it usually belongs in the main text.
Rectos and versos
Most important pages in the prelims begin on a recto, the right-hand page, because that is where the eye falls first when a page is turned. This leaves some versos blank. In a tightly planned book, some of these rules are relaxed to save pages; the dedication and epigraph, for instance, can share a page or fall on a verso. The priority is that the title page is a recto and that the order is logical.
Why the order matters
The sequence moves from the general to the specific: what the book is, who made it and who published it, who it is for, and then what it contains. A reader picking it up in a shop, a librarian cataloguing it, and a rights buyer checking the copyright details all look in predictable places. Departing from the pattern costs them time.
Planning the prelims
Books are printed in sections, called signatures, of a fixed number of pages, often 16 or 32. The total extent needs to fit the printing format, and the prelims are one of the places where a page or two can be gained or lost. That is one reason why the front matter is often finalised late, and why the pages may be numbered in roman numerals separately from the main text.
It is worth planning the prelims as soon as the extent of the text is known, so that there is no scramble at the end to fit a dedication, a map or a list of other titles.
The front matter should let a reader into the book without holding them up at the door.