Abstract
Since the 18th century, the elements of presentation have played a strategic role in defining in defining the specifics of the novel. In addition to the tasks of referring to the public, typical of exordiums in the rhetorical tradition, paratexts announce the terms of narration and the modalities of authorship. In the case of Machado de Assis' novels the prefaces and notes to the reader are inseparable from the fictions of the book that characterize the literary specificity of the plots.
Keywords:
preface; fiction; Machado de Assis