ABSTRACT
The dedication in reality is the choosing of the right one—the one from whom the author has nothing to fear and the one who will read the book as he would have it read and be the all sympathetic, all indulgent critic. There is prodigious uniformity in the Middle Ages and the same is true of dedications. William Caxton’s dedications and prefaces are famous and valuable for the light they shed upon the life of the man and upon the development of printing in England. Caxton’s dedications, as those of England’s first printer, are interesting in another connection—the dedication to a reading public. Collective dedicating was by no means a new thing. The approbation of a great man, as evidenced by a dedication, had an effect more indirect, but no less important, than pleasing the patron, for the effect upon the author’s readers was perhaps equally important.
