When hearts are trumps by Tom Hall (1894) - 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
Bradley gives the type its own full-width band instead of squeezing it into the picture, so at street distance the poster reads title first and image second - a hard split between selling line and illustration that most poster designers of the period blurred. The flat colour separations forced by stone lithography are turned into the style itself, which makes the image legible as silhouette from across a road. The picture carries no information about the book, only an atmosphere of intimacy and abundance, so the buyer projects the contents; the heart glyph is the only literal tie back to the title's card-game pun.
Steal this when
Reach for this when the product is an experience or a mood rather than a feature set, and the title alone is intriguing enough to do the selling. The structure - a flat, high-contrast image on top, the title in a clean reserved band at the bottom - is the right one for anything that has to work at distance or as a thumbnail.