Post History

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/30289
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/30289
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Starting around the 1920's dust jackets started to get decorative and became a place where you could market the book. ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dust\_jacket#Oldest\_dust\_jackets](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dust_jacket#Oldest_dust_jackets)) That function has now migrated to the back page of the paperback. There is no place to put marketing material on the cover of a hardback book (though there are a few hardback formats that are smooth and printable these days).

Before the 1920's hardbound books had highly decorated covers and the dust jackets were plainer and were mostly discarded by bookstore before being put on the shelf.

Given this, it seems reasonable to speculate that the reason for a table of content in a novel was as a way to market the book by telling the reader what to expect inside. In support of this we should note that many 19th century TOCs included a synopsis of each chapter as well as the title.

Once books had decorative dust jackets or printable back covers, there was another place to tell the reader what the book was about. Conventions of the form are slow to die, but TOCs in novels seem to have been fading away over the last century as they serve no real purpose for the modern reader.

Clearly it is permissible and, indeed, conventional, to omit them today.

Original score: 19