TITLE PAGE
The title page contains just what it says; the title! It also usually includes the subtitle, if there is any, the author, the publisher, the editor, publishing date (though this one does not), and any pertinent information that will help the reader navigate the book or be able to contextualize it. Often the typeface is enlarged or minimized as it suits the page aesthetically, and unites the information as a cohesive piece, meant to represent the rest of the book.
This title page shows the imagination and fantastical stories that will be told in the book through its illustration and decorative as well as plain typeface. The title page, meant to engage you in the story and contextualize the rest of the book, does this well and is a piece of art in itself.
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ILLUSTRATION
For detailed illustrations like the ones here, intaglio printing would have been the most likely one used here. Intaglio printing is similar to lithography, in that it is incised on a metal plate and painted with ink so that it sits within the thin groves incised. It is then wiped clean on the surface, the ink staying in the lines, paper placed over it and then under the roller in a rolling printer so that with enough pressure the ink is transferred to the page.
Not all the illustrations within the book were done by the same illustrators, as indicated by their signatures. It is unclear why this may be. These images would have probably been printed after the typeface, since they would have had to have been wiped before printing. Space would be left for them when the compositing of the typeface was done.
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TYPEFACE
There are multiple typefaces in play here, including a bold typeface, a Gothic script typeface, and a Roman typeface. The different types are obviously meant to mark different topics or names. The differences are noticeable and needed for the title page to draw the eye to certain areas.
The typography shown here on the title page is not consistent with the typeface throughout the rest of the book, though that just means that the typeface used for one or the other was different in size and design for purely aesthetic reasons and the printer owned more than one kind of typeface. Since there is no colophon at the end of the book, it is hard to ascertain what the typeface was actually called, but comparison between similar books from the period may determine how popular the typeface was.
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