Mary I and the Art of Book Dedications Royal Women, Power, and Persuasion

by Schutte, Valerie

• ISBN13: 9781137541260
• ISBN10: 1137541261
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2015-08-06
• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan

Summary

Printed book and manuscript dedications were at the juncture between the actual interests and reading abilities of Tudor royal ladies and the beliefs and hopes of those who wrote them to persuade Tudor royal ladies in certain directions. Queen Mary I received eighteen manuscript dedications and thirty-three printed book dedications, the majority of them were religious in nature, specifically addressing a return to Catholicism. In this revisionist approach to book history and Marian studies Valerie Schutte argues that dedications, and the negotiations that accompanied them, reveal both contemporary perceptions of how statecraft, religion, and gender were and the political maneuvering attempting to influence how they ought to be. Schutte offers the first comprehensive catalogue of all book and manuscript dedications to Mary and all books that were known to have been in Mary's possession.

Author Biography

Valerie Schutte earned her Ph.D. in History from the University of Akron. She has published two articles on Anne Boleyn, an article on The Merchant of Venice, and has articles in the Journal of the Early Book Society and Early Modern Women, both dealing with royal Tudor women and print. She is currently co-editing a collection of essays celebrating the 500th birthday of Queen Mary I.

Table of Contents

Introduction

1. Lady Margaret Beaufort and the Wives of Henry VIII

2. Dedications to a Princess

3. Printed Dedications to a Queen

4. Manuscript Dedications to Mary

5. Dedications to Philip and Mary

6. Books Owned by Mary

Conclusion