The damnation of Theron Ware or illumination by Harold Frederic (1896) - 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 sheet is split into a picture zone and a silent type zone, so the eye never has to fight lettering for the face. Only three colours carry the whole thing, and the one saturated warm note, the hair, is the same orange-red as the title type, which ties the woman to the words without an arrow or a caption. The condensed caps are sized line by line to fill the full measure, which makes a five-line title read as one solid block rather than as a ragged paragraph. The title is a moral threat and the image is a beautiful woman, and the gap between the two is the curiosity that makes someone stop.
Steal this when
Reach for this layout when a single character, face or personality is the product's real appeal. Give the portrait the top two thirds flat and un-cluttered, then put every word into one calm panel underneath rather than scattering type across the image.