Title Page of an Album of Comic Verse

The book falls open at its title page. A framed panel of archaic seal-script announces the work, set against a plain endpaper flecked and foxed with age. An opening like this did the job a printed title page does now, naming the book and setting its tone before the reader reaches the first illustration. The lettering is deliberately old-fashioned, lending a light air of learning to what is, at heart, a book of witty verse and fashionable portraits. Designed by Kyōden under his artist name Kitao Masanobu, the volume was built to be leafed through in sequence, page after page. Even the front matter belongs to the reading: a threshold you cross on the way in.