One fair daughter by Frank Frankfort Moore - 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 withholds the outcome, which is the engine: the woman's face is hidden and the snake is still rearing, so the reader has to buy the book to find out whether she is asleep, fainted or dead. The dark title block acts as the background the cobra is silhouetted against, which means the biggest black shape and the biggest threat occupy the same zone and the eye cannot take the title without taking the danger. Prices are placed above the artwork rather than buried, so the trade could read format, binding and cost in one glance, and the cheap edition is named first to lower the entry point.
Steal this when
Steal this when you have one product at two price points and want the low one to do the recruiting; state both above the visual rather than at the end. Also steal the unresolved-moment image when the thing you sell is a story and the only honest promise is that the answer is inside.