I have wondered this for a while

[james_davis_nicoll]

What's the point of the subtitle "a novel"?

Comments

[thomasyan.livejournal.com]

Like James, I have also wondered. One hypothesis was maybe it marked standalone novels from a series, but I think that didn't hold up.

It's a market signal -- it tells people that the book is upmarket or elevated.

You know, I think it actually works like that on me. For some reason, I kind of like it, and you might have identified the reason.

I guess it would be interesting to get a nice big list of examples. I could see something like Byatt's Possession being marketed this way. I'm not so sure about Butler's The Fledgling, but I guess it could be at work there, too.

[papersky.livejournal.com]

Possession (I'm reading it at the moment) is "a romance". Which it is, in any meaning of the word you care to mention.

[thomasyan.livejournal.com]

Reading or re-reading? I would have thought you'd already read it.

I checked on amazon.com for the cover images, and you're right about Possession, and I remembered correctly for The Fledgling.

I think my failure to remember for Possession shows that for me both subtitles serve the same purpose.

[papersky.livejournal.com]

Re-reading, I've read it frequently before.