Albert Morris Bagby's new novel Miss Traumerel (1895) - poster
The pattern
This still is filed under Lettered cover hook.
Define
The cover is the hook, and the hook is lettering: a title treated as an image.
Mechanism
Type as bait. The words are drawn so they stop the hand before the contents are known.
Verdict
A journal, book, or issue must sell itself on a rack or a feed
Why it works
The picture is built on one strong reversed diagonal, piano lid up to the right, flowers rising from the left, so a still, interior subject gets tension without action. Reed puts the flowers in front of the figure rather than behind, which flattens the space into decorative planes and keeps the yellow, the only bright hue, in the reader's half of the picture. The figure is turned away and her face is the smallest light shape on the sheet, which forces the viewer to lean in and makes absorption, the meaning of Träumerei, the actual subject. The commercial furniture, publisher, address, availability and price, is banded off on plain cream below the image so it never intrudes on the mood it is there to monetise.
Steal this when
You are selling something whose promise is an interior state rather than a feature, and a turned-away figure plus one dominant decorative motif will carry it. Also when you want the transactional lines kept in a separate band so the image stays uncontaminated by them.