Dedicated to you but you weren’t listening. Research conducted this afternoon shows there to be a direct correlation between the level of understatement in the front verso page of a book with the degree of intimacy in the author’s inscription. The understated (blank) verso has a very sincere dedication; the overstated a very superficial one. The title page that falls between these two opposites, the one that is functional and austere, perhaps as expected, has the most generic and formal.
These are from a collection of books that I have either found, bought second hand or that have been loaned to me and I have yet to return. All have been signed by the author and dedicated to a reader – a reader sometimes known, a reader sometimes anonymous, but never me, I am simply the recipient and the guardian of these secondhand wishes.
Abandoned dedications
Extrapolated from an earlier post, “Abandoned Dedications” now has a page of its own. Eventually it will build into an archive of fleeting and forgotten regards. Bare as it looks now, the archive is growing and will continue to do so as and when new dedications come my way.
In the mean time, by way of repatriating the dedications with their original sentiment, they are available to download as full page pdf’s. They are given warmly and to be received as anonymously as they are delivered.