Paratexts are those liminal devices and conventions, both withing and outside the book, that form part of the complex mediation between book, author, publisher, and reader: titles, forewords, epigraphs, and publishers’ jacket copy are part of a book’s private and public history.
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Paratexts: thresholds of interpretation (1987), by Gérard Genette
authorship, interpretation, literature, metaworks, textuality, theory
Gérard Genette