The inland printer, March, 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
One ink and one shape. Bradley gets depth from nothing but the density of white cuts inside the black, close packed for shadow, open for light, which is exactly the control a letterpress house wants to show off. Dating the issue outside the frame rather than inside it keeps the artwork reusable as a print and signals that the picture, not the date, is the reason to pick the copy up. The mid-dots in the title are a typographer showing a typographer that the spacing was considered.
Steal this when
Steal this when the product is the craft itself. Let the artefact perform the capability you are selling, run it in the cheapest possible specification, and let the restraint be the argument.