Definition
Front matter
Front matter is everything before chapter one: title page, copyright page, dedication, epigraph, table of contents. It is numbered separately by convention (roman numerals) and typically adds 4–8 pages to a book.
Print convention orders it roughly: half-title, title page, copyright (imprint) page, dedication, epigraph, contents, then the body. Novels keep front matter lean — title, copyright, dedication — while non-fiction often carries a contents page. In page-count planning, front matter is why a '217-page' body becomes a ~223-page book, and it always begins on a recto (right-hand) page.
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