A frontispiece in a book is an illustration facing the title page. The illustration may sometimes include text. To cite this text, create a works-cited-list entry for the book, and then key your in-text citation to the entry. Since the frontispiece is likely on an unnumbered page, indicate in your prose that you are citing material from a frontispiece, as shown in the example below:

In the frontispiece to Howe’s Primer; or, The Child’s First Book, a poem captures the rhythm of a young girl’s life, which alternates between reading and sewing:

Pray look for the scissors,

The needles, and thread,

That dear Emma may work,

When her book she has read.

Work Cited

Howe’s Primer; or, The Child’s First Book. William Benrose, 1830.