ABSTRACT
Genette’s description of the paratextual elements of books as the threshold or entrance hall has considerable metaphorical power (1997). Book covers can be seen as a doorway through which we glimpse the text. The illustrated front is an advertisement and a tease, partially revealing, partially concealing the content. It is the threshold between the public commercial arena where the book is for sale and the more intimate world of the text where the author speaks to us alone. In the bookshop or the library it is a place of negotiation and decision. The cover dallies with us – should we open the book? Should we take it and own it? Will it give us the enjoyment we seek? In particular it leads to browsing behaviour and is a site for the pleasures of choice and anticipation which is a prelude to the sale and consumption of a work.
