'part-title page' or 'half-title' for 'naka-tobira' and 'han-tobira'

[tgraham-antenna]

The division of a book above the level of chapter is usually 'part'.

'part-title page' is used, for example, in "Book Typography: A Designer's Manual" by Mitchell and Wightman (2005). "The Design of Books" by Adrian Wilson refers to "part titles" in Chapter 5, Anatomy of the Book.

"Methods of Book Design" by Hugh Williamson (1983) allows for a 'half-title' for both book and part titles, where a 'half-title' is "a separate leaf, on the recto page of which a title is printed." However, "Book Typography" uses 'half-title' only for the page before the book's title page that contains only the title.

(Just to show that terminology is not consistent and changes over time, "Printing Design and Layout" by Vincent Steer (1948) insists that the page before the title page is the 'bastard title' and reserves 'half title' for the page with the book title "which, in a really complete book, appears just before the commencement of the text." (The book itself doesn't have one.) Also "If the book is in two or more parts, then the half title may bear the words 'Part One,' or 'Book One,' ...")

English-language book design doesn't have a separate term for whether or not the verso of the part-title/half-title page is blank. The verso is variously described as 'conventionally' or 'always' blank. I think that whether the verso is blank or not depends on whether chapters can start on a verso or not. If chapters always start on a recto, then there will usually not be any ordinary text on the part-title/half-title verso (unless the part has some introductory text). It's possible to put an image, map, quotation, or the part's table of contents on the part-title/half-title verso and then start the next chapter on the following recto. When chapters can start on either a recto or verso page, then the design may be more consistent if the first chapter within a part starts on the verso of the part-title/half-title recto. "Book Design", for example, starts chapters on the verso of its part-title pages.