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

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 18 manuscript dedications and 33 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 statecraft, religion, and gender and the political maneuvering attempting to influence them.

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.