Dedicating a book to someone is powerful. It’s an announcement with trumpets.
We’ve all read the thanks that go on for several pages. They embrace everyone from the author’s family, agent and editor, to anyone who gave them help with research or did the typing.
Justified? Probably. Sincere? Mostly. But a dedication? No.
As such, it carries weight. It may be blatant flattery, of course. Or it may be a profound compliment, a private joke, or even something so intensely intimate that only the writer and dedicatee wholly understands. But it is out there for all to see and ponder over.
A couple of years ago an American academic came up with the suggestion that Mr W.H. was a publisher . He’d brought out work by other playwrights, including Ben Jonson. And he died a couple of years before the Sonnets were published. So the dedication wasn’t a tantalising declaration of forbidden love. Not even a romantic friendship-with-advice. It was more like a funeral tribute to a benefactor of Shakespeare’s profession.
Wilde – whose short story poked fun at the whole Mr W.H. industry and ended by concluding that he was a boy actor – would have been disappointed.
Dedicating to a Family Member
Most dedications are emotionally charged in some way, often mysteriously more so than they actually say.
It is a good joke and, as so often, he’d used it before. He dedicated A Gentleman of Leisure to his mate Herbert Westbrook, in very similar terms. Westbrook was probably the model for PGW’s cheerful sponger, Ukridge.
What is truly touching, though, is that Leonora was not his natural daughter. In 1914 PGW had married her mother, Ethel Wayman, complete with resident eleven-year-old.
She sounds lovely in Frances Donaldson’s marvellous letters, A Woman’s War, too.
When Leonora died unexpectedly, after a routine operation, PGW was devastated. He wrote “I feel that nothing matters much now.” But as an example of perfect parenting and childing their relationship – and that dedication – take some beating, I feel.
Dedicating to the Beloved – Maybe
She was Catherine Walston, whom Greene met when he became her godfather. Like him, she became an adult convert to the Catholic Church. Who knows whether Greene’s dedication was meant to signal that the story was a roman a clef? Their real life affair seems to have been a lot more complicated – and fun – than his horrible immorality tale. What’s more,the real hero of it, as evidenced in his last generous and dignified letter to Greene, was her husband.
Dedicating to the Beloved – Certainly
I
Eric Van Lustbader writes best selling rough, tough action suspense, including eleven of the Bourne series. Floating City contains all of his trade mark thrills and issues. It is set in the Vietnamese jungle where a Ninja faces a debt of honour and a moral dilemma. It is the 5th in his Nicholas Linnear series.
The dedication? “For my beloved Victoria: my tireless advocate; my best friend – without her I would no doubt float away.” (How I know that feeling of drifting uncontrollably inside a book.) His wife, Victoria Lustbader, is an author too.
Dedicating to the One Who Inspired You
“In memory of Rosemary Sutcliff who died while this was being written: on behalf of all the children who know how far it is from Venta to the mountains.”
The answer is “all of two hundred miles”. It is in The Eagle of the Ninth Chronicles.
If ever anyone deserved their dedication, it was Rosemary Sutcliff. She gets one from Simon Scarrow, too, in Gladiator Fight for Freedom: “For Rosemary Sutcliff who has inspired so many of us to love history.”
There may well be more. Her historical imagination was impeccable. And the books are as exciting to me now as they were when I first read them. In fact I’m about to re-read the lot, now that I’ve remembered. Thanks to that dedication!
Dedicatees to Come
These are just a few of the dedications I have explored, since coming across Ms Davis’s tribute. Others I’ve found are equally touching, intriguing, mysterious and, upon probing, educational. You may well find them as fascinating as I do. So:
to be continued…
I have a dedication that I want to use – but it is for a particular book, which is yet to be written!
Goodness. I bet that’s going to focus the mind more than somewhat!
Oops – also meant to say how much I enjoyed the post!
Thank you Evonne. I was so fascinated, I rather got carried away.
Interesting post. I’m always fascinated by dedications.
I confess that more than half the time, I forget them altogether. Especially as ebooks generally open onto the first chapter.
But then one can suddenly stop me dead in my tracks, as Lindsey Davis’s did. And then, like you, I’m really sucked in. And of course then I want to know more….
Thank you for this. I’ve dedicated my books to family members and very close friends, usually in memoriam. Acknowledgments carry all the thanks and apologies. But the thanks are due for the reminder of Rosemary Sutcliffe. I’ve never owned any, they all came from the library, and I vividly remember one cover. I shall now ferret them all out.
Oh I love Rosemary Sutcliff, Lesley. When I got to that point where they’re hiding out in the cold, I always used to go and get a rug to put round me, even on a bright, sunny day!
Very entertaining. Did not know about Mr W.H. of Shakespeare fame. The first time I was moved to dedicate a book was to my father when my first Lady Fan mystery was published because he had always encouraged my writing and he did not live to see this success and I knew he would have cheered for me.
That’s exactly the sort of dedication that I like the best, Liz. It really gives you a sense of the writer coming out from behind the curtain and giving you a quiet nod.