Folks who collect something other than hypermodern fiction frequently encounter the term frontispiece in booksellers' catalogs. As the ABAA Glossary makes clear, the term is merely a shorthand way of saying that the book at hand has an illustration or plate inserted immediately in front of the title page, with the illustration facing the title page:
Often abbreviated in catalogs as frontis, the frontispiece is infrequently encountered in modern books, unless one collects fine press books or books from specialist publishers like The Folio Society. This is unfortunate, since the frontispiece often is the one place in a book where a particular illustrative technique (mezzotint, wood engraving [depicted below, via Jahsonic], chromolithography, etc.), can be seen to best effect (encompassing, as it usually does, an entire page):
It probably would not be an overstatement to say that one could present the entire history of book illustration using just a handful of titles, if each such title contained a frontispiece representative of a particular illustrative technique (the frontis below is by way of Roger Harris):
Of course, if you want this select collection of books to really astound and amaze your fellow book collectors, you'll want to make sure that all the frontispieces fold out (as does the title below, currently on offer from James Cummins):
Folding frontispieces are frequently engraved maps. Because such maps command a substantial premium by themselves, they often are removed from the books in which they originally appeared. Bidding wars often erupt whenever a book comes on the market that has its map frontis intact (the title depicted below, currently on offer from A Book for All Reasons, is much more reasonably priced):
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