This chapter provides a brief overview of the essentials of Gerard Genette's typology. It outlines the place that he envisages for translation within his framework. Genette's insistence on a connection between paratext and authorial intention can be found throughout the book, and occasionally comes into play as the deciding factor for determining whether a particular element is to be considered part of the paratext. In Seuils, through the interrogation of myriad examples of texts and their paratexts, Genette shows that reading of a text never occurs in isolation from the paratext around it, since a reader never comes to a text, but always to a book; and the book, furthermore, circulates in a context which also affects its reception. Within Genette's framework, which deals with printed literature, paratexts are 'almost all' textual, and Genette pays limited attention to substantial variables as a result.