“Literary dedications began with scribblers in the 18th-century sucking up to rich patrons. It was only in the past 100 years that they became vehicles for private missives and Valentines.
Decoding them is fun – with luck you can catch an illuminating flash as the authorial skirts are momentarily lifted. But, when love turns sour, loving dedications can have a horrible, inexpungable irony. Novels have an unfortunate habit of surviving marriages.”
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