Name: Once Again to Zelda
ISBN: 9780399534621

Marlene Wagman-Geller

Examines the stories behind the dedications in fifty literary classics, discussing each author, as well as the social and historical context in which each book was first published, and covering such works as Shelley's Frankenstein, Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, and Dostoyevsky's The Brothers Karamazov.

The Stories Behind Literature's Most Intriguing Dedications

Once Again to Zelda

Laura Mauler

Here's the thing about this book: it's a great concept, but the author does not deliver a great book. 

First, the subtitle claims that the book will cover "literature's most intriguing dedications", but what it really covers are generic dedications from some of literature's greatest authors. But that's not really the story either because often the book containing the dedication isn't even mentioned, leaving us with simply a four or five page biography of the author and dedicatee.

Second, the author's writing style starts off mediocre and devolves over the course of the book. Every single chapter uses a sick amount of foreshadowing, which is a crutch used by hack writers (it is also a personal peeve of mine). Toward the end of the book the author basically gives up and has the junior high student down the block finish writing the damn thing.

Once Again to Zelda The Stories Behind Literature's Most Intriguing Dedications

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