> > And what about "The Fortunes and Misfortunes of Moll Flanders Who Was Born In Newgate, And During a Life of Continu'd Variety For Threescore Years, Besides Her Childhood, Was Twelve Year a Whore, Five Times a Wife [Whereof Once To Her Own Brother], Twelve Year a Thief, Eight Year a Transported Felon In Virginia, At Last Grew Rich, Liv'd Honest, and Died a Penitent," by Daniel Defoe, as ultra-condensed by Samuel Stoddard and David J. Parker?
>
> The full title to Dafoe's "Robinson Crusoe" is actually about as long as that. I guess there are certain privileges that come with inventing something like the novel.

My suspicion is that from the time books were invented until the mid-1900s, the frontspiece (first right-hand page?) of a book probably served as both the title page and a quickie summary of the book's contents itself. Hence the fullblown lengthy titles. Then came along colorful glossy dust jackets, and also the practise of putting reviewers' comments as advertising blurbs on the cover, and it was All Over in terms of creative book titles for fiction.