English

Noun

1. Either of two folded sheets of paper used to connect the front and back covers of a book to the first and last pages

The endpapers of a book are the leaves of paper before the title page and after the text. One part is pasted to the inside cover. They hold the text and cover together. Also called end leaf or end sheet.

The free half of the end paper is called a flyleaf.

Booksellers sometimes refer to the front end paper as FEP. They can be removed from eg former library books.

Before mass printing in the 20th century it was common for the endpapers of books to have woodblock patterns or marbling.

See also

• Book
• Bookbinding
• Book design

acknowledgments, back, back matter, bastard title, bibliography, catch line, catchword, colophon, contents, contents page, copyright page, dedication, endleaf, endsheet, errata, flyleaf, folio, fore edge, foreword, front matter, half-title page, head, imprint, index, inscription, introduction, leaf, makeup, page, preface, preliminaries, recto, reverso, running title, signature, subtitle, table of contents, tail, text, title, title page, trim size, type page, verso