Paratexts

The Thresholds of Textuality

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by Gerard Genette,

Translated by Jane E. Lewin,

Foreword by Richard Macksey

Cambridge University Press

Due/Published May 1997, 410 pages, paper

ISBN 0521424062

Paratexts are titles, forewords, cover copy, and all of those liminal devices and conventions both within and outside the book that mediate between book, author, and reader--and form part of a book's private and public history. Offering a global view of these mediations and their relation to the reading public, Genette shows how these paratexts interact with general questions of literature as a cultural institution. Hmmm . . . what would he make of Frontlist?

Contents

1. Foreword; 2. Translator's note; 3. Introduction; 4. The publisher's peritext; 5. The name of the author; 6. Titles; 7. The please-insert; 8. Dedications and inscriptions; 9. Epigraphs; 10. The prefatorial Situation of Communication; 11. The Functions of the Original Preface; 12. Other Prefaces, Other Functions; 13. Intertitles; 14. Notes; 15. The public Epitext; 16. The private Epitext; 17. Conclusion; 18. Sources of Quotations; 19. Index of Names