Post No. 6—Dedication

The Writing of One Novel

The Great Detective at the Crucible of Life;

 Or, The Adventure of the Rose of Fire

Copyright © 2012 by Thos. Kent Miller

All rights reserved

  [Note: These posts are sequential, each building on the previous.]

From "Hound of the Baskerviles"

—Sidney Paget 

From Child of Storm

—A.C. Michael 

The Dedication

On page 11 of The Great Detective at the Crucible of Life; Or, The Adventure of the Rose of Firebegins the second and more obvious of the book’s two dedications (see Post No. 4 for a discussion of the first dedication).  It is a block of text 600 words long. Certainly this is not at all what modern readers expect to see, if they happen to notice any dedication at all. Dedications as a rule are short and exceedingly specific.  I’m picking out a couple of books at random off my shelves…and here is the sort of thing that is expected these days:

For Sally

Here’s another:

To

The wife of my youth

Who

Still abides with me

My 600-word block is in unabashed emulation of H. Rider Haggard’s dedications. Many of his books were dedicated in just the fashion that you see below. Of course, I would never expect any typical modern reader to know that. I’m grateful, however, that John Betancourt noticed instantly, but, of course, he had the advantage of, in his words, "Having just read about 40 Haggard books in the last 2 years has more than doubled my appreciation of it!”

Haggard was a very sincere man, and he tended to lavish his feelings on those individuals to whom he dedicated his books. His dedications were closer in spirit to personal heartfelt letters, listing the accomplishments of the person.

Here is Haggard’s dedication from Child of Storm, a Quatermain novel, which was his favorite from among all his works of fiction.

Thus, there was no question that CRUCIBLE would include something of the sort—dedicated to Haggard, and also to others as a natural consequence. Much of the purpose of this dedication has already been discussed in the first five posts. It only remains to be said that, in essence, this dedication was in fact written as a letter to the great author. The location, Redwood City, California, at the end of my dedication represents where I first had the idea of what would become CRUCIBLE. The year, 1988, is when I actually began to write it.
 

[As an aside, in the early 1980s, my wife and I bought our first house in the Emerald Lake district of Redwood City, California. Emerald Lake is a forested, rustic pocket of turn-of-the-century log houses in an otherwise normal suburb of San Francisco. As it happened, by pure chance, down the road apiece, around a few bends, lived E. Hoffmann Price—making him my neighbor. Price was a popular and successful contributor to pulp magazines from the 1920s to the 1950s. His first sales were to Weird Tales magazine, whereupon he became a friend of many writers of the day through correspondence. Before long, he sold stories to a long string of magazines with titles like Spicy Detective, Adventure, and Magic Carpet. In time, he developed a wanderlust that he sated by automobile "touring," then a new past time, and he drove around the country meeting his colleagues and friends, writers and editors, such as Henry Kuttner, Seabury Quinn, Clark Ashton Smith, Otis Adelbert Kline, Robert E. Howard, and H.P, Lovecraft. Here is a photo of Ed and me.]

 Thos. Kent Miller and E. Hoffmann Price c. 1985

Post No. 7 will begin to focus on the novel itself (as opposed to its front matter), which, ironically, pretends to be front matter! It is really the first chapter of the novel and is titled "Editor's Note to the Third Edition," and it is a vital chapter because it is here that the reader finds the conclusion or denouement of the whole story.

Comments are appreciated! Thank you.

The Great Detective at the Crucible of Life; Or, The Adventure of the Rose of Fire is available at
http://www.amazon.com/The-Great-Detective-Crucible-Life/dp/0809500507 .