Slightly off topic, but in the same general vein-- Pevsner's Buildings of England series has a number of other dedications from which the author could never hope for reward:

 

London 2: To the marshes of Clapham, Balham, and Tooting

 

Bedfordshire: To the Inventor of the Iced Lolly

 

and the one for the North Riding of Yorkshire:

To those Publicans

and Hoteliers of England

who provide me with a table

in my bedroom to

scribble on

 

The last surely is the basic point of patronage! Very interesting discussion, by the way.

Sean Henry.

 

----- Original Message -----
From: "James C. Nohrnberg" <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Friday, September 8, 2006 8:33 am
Subject: Re: Dedication to a dead person
To: [log in to unmask]

> The young Joyce is supposed to have written a lost play
> dedicated "To My own
> Soul."   (The introverted Ibsenism of 'Exiles' bears
> this dedication out.)
>
>    On Fri, 8 Sep 2006 10:28:12 -0400
>   Joel Davis <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> > So a dedication to someone deceased might also be a
> declaration that one
> >needs no patronage and has no financial need attached to the
> book in
> >question -- a kind of stepping above the (soon-to-be) Grub
> Street fray?
> >
> > Joel B Davis
> > Assistant Professor
> > Department of English
> > Stetson University
> > 421 N Woodland Blvd #8300
> > DeLand FL 32721
> > 386.822.7724
> >
> > On Sep 7, 2006, at 4:57 PM, andrew zurcher wrote:
> >
> >> Something I meant to mention earlier, but forgot, alas:
> >> Virgils Gnat. Long since dedicated To the most noble and
> excellent
> >> Lord, the Earle of Leicester, late deceased. [1590]
> >>
> >> Michael: Probably so (overstated), but an author ca 1590-1600
> (at
> >> least) stood to gain more than payment from a successful
> dedication:
> >> further employment, political intervention, a place to go
> when the
> >> plague hit, and so on; and publishers stood to gain sales. In
> his
> >> account of the calling in of Mother Hubberds Tale in 1591,
> Tresham
> >> makes a note of the dedication of the work, which seems to
> him to
> >> increase its notoriety and must-have value.
> >>
> >> az
> >>
> >>
> >> Andrew Zurcher
> >> Tutor and Director of Studies in English
> >> Queens' College
> >> Cambridge CB3 9ET
> >> United Kingdom
> >> +44 1223 335 572
> >>
> >> hast hast post hast for lyfe
> >>
> >>> general, I have agreed with others who have suggested that
> the
> >>> payment function of the epistle dedicatory, though
> continuously
> >>> present through the 17th century, has been overstated in
> scholarship,
> >>> with respect to its occurence and importance to authors and
> printers.
> >>> However, I can't think of
> >>
>
> [log in to unmask]
> James Nohrnberg
> Dept. of English, Bryan Hall 219
> Univ. of Virginia
> P.O Box 400121
> Charlottesville, VA 22904-4121
>