“A book may be the home of both thought and vision. Speaking figuratively, in regard to book decoration, some are content with a rough shanty in the woods, and care only to get as close to nature in her most superficial aspects as they can. Others would surround their house with a garden indeed, but they demand something like an architectural plan. They would look at a frontispiece like a façade; they would take hospitable encouragement from the title-page as from a friendly inscription over the porch; they would hang a votive wreath at the dedication, and so pass on into the hall of welcome, take the author by the hand and be led by him and his artist from room to room, as page after page is turned, fairly decked and adorned with picture and ornament and device…”
Walter Crane, On the Decorative Illustration of Books Old and New (1896)