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Template · By Prosematter · Updated 2026-08-30

Book dedication examples and a template

A dedication is one line for one person. Twelve from published novels, twenty-three you can adapt, and the four decisions behind all of them.

Two wooden trays, the near one almost entirely empty with a single mother-of-pearl cufflink resting off centre, the far one crowded with buttons, keys and clasps that hide its floor

How to write a dedication in a book, in one line: name one person. It is also optional. Plenty of published books have none, and no reviewer has ever held its absence against one.

What it does, when you include one, is narrow. It names the person the book belongs to in a way the acknowledgements cannot, because the acknowledgements are a list and this is a single sentence on a page of its own. That is the whole of its power. A dedication naming nine people is an acknowledgements page that has wandered into the wrong part of the book.

It is also the first prose of yours a reader meets. They have come through the cover, the title page and a block of legal text, and then there is one line with a great deal of white space around it. Whatever that line does, it does loudly.

The four choices a dedication makes

Every dedication answers these four, including the ones that look effortless. Fill them in and the line usually writes itself.

Every field is filled in for Treasure Island — Robert Louis Stevenson, 1883. Filled in from the dedication Stevenson printed, to his stepson Lloyd Osbourne, who had asked him for a pirate story.

  1. S.L.O., an American gentleman

Start here

4 fields

  1. Lloyd Osbourne. One person is the strongest version. Two is common. Three begins to read as a list.

  2. S.L.O. Initials, a first name, a full name or a description. The less public the name, the more intimate the page reads.

  3. In accordance with whose classic taste the following narrative has been designed. A reason is optional and turns a label into a sentence.

  4. Formal, plain, or a joke. Match it to the book: a comic novel can carry a comic dedication, and a memoir about a death usually cannot.

The cases that need different wording

Four situations come up often enough to have settled conventions. None is a rule, and each exists because the plain version reads wrong in that case.

When the person has died

2 fields
The convention is to name them and the years, without explaining the loss. Restraint carries more here than any adjective.

  1. For my mother, Ann Reilly, 1948 to 2019

  2. Ann Reilly, who read the first three chapters and asked for the rest

When it is for more than one

2 fields
Two names work. Beyond that, group them rather than listing them.

  1. For Dan and for Kate

  2. Name the group, not its members. For the night shift at St Mary's.

When it is for the reader

1 fields
Common in genre fiction and easy to get wrong, because it can read as a marketing line rather than a dedication.

  1. Name a kind of reader rather than an audience. For the ones who finish the acknowledgements works. For my fans does not.

With an epigraph underneath

1 fields
A quotation can sit below a dedication on the same page or take a page of its own. Check permissions first: a line from a living poet needs clearing, and song lyrics are the most expensive words in publishing.

  1. A line, then the author and the work beneath it, right-aligned

Book dedication template (PDF)Book dedication (Word)

Both files are blank and both are generated from this page, so the fields match what you see above.

Thirty-five dedications: twelve printed, twenty-three to adapt

The first twelve are real, taken from the front of published books and checked against the text rather than repeated from a list. Read them for range: the shortest is three words and the longest is a paragraph. The twenty-three after them are patterns, grouped by who the book is for, and they are yours to change.

Three words: The Great Gatsby, 1925

Once again
to
Zelda

F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby, 1925

A nickname only two people understand: Dracula, 1897

TO
MY DEAR FRIEND
HOMMY-BEG

Bram Stoker, Dracula, 1897

Wife and son, named in full: The Sun Also Rises, 1926

This book is for HADLEY
and for JOHN HADLEY NICANOR

Ernest Hemingway, The Sun Also Rises, 1926

A marriage counted in years: Middlemarch, 1871

To my dear Husband, George Henry Lewes,
in this nineteenth year of our blessed union.

George Eliot, Middlemarch, 1871

Initials in place of a name: The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, 1900

This book is dedicated to my good friend & comrade
My Wife
L.F.B.

L. Frank Baum, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, 1900

In verse, to his wife: Winnie-the-Pooh, 1926

TO HER

HAND IN HAND WE COME
CHRISTOPHER ROBIN AND I
TO LAY THIS BOOK IN YOUR LAP.
SAY YOU'RE SURPRISED?
SAY YOU LIKE IT?
SAY IT'S JUST WHAT YOU WANTED?

A. A. Milne, Winnie-the-Pooh, 1926

The reason attached, at length: Treasure Island, 1883

To S.L.O., an American gentleman in accordance with whose classic taste the following narrative has been designed, it is now, in return for numerous delightful hours, and with the kindest wishes, dedicated by his affectionate friend, the author.

Robert Louis Stevenson, Treasure Island, 1883

In memory of another writer: O Pioneers!, 1913

TO THE MEMORY OF
SARAH ORNE JEWETT
IN WHOSE BEAUTIFUL AND DELICATE WORK
THERE IS THE PERFECTION
THAT ENDURES

Willa Cather, O Pioneers!, 1913

To a mentor, by name: This Side of Paradise, 1920

To SIGOURNEY FAY

F. Scott Fitzgerald, This Side of Paradise, 1920

To two fellow novelists: Main Street, 1920

To James Branch Cabell and Joseph Hergesheimer

Sinclair Lewis, Main Street, 1920

Four words, to a friend: Nostromo, 1904

TO JOHN GALSWORTHY

Joseph Conrad, Nostromo, 1904

A friend, with a poem underneath: The Man Who Was Thursday, 1908

To Edmund Clerihew Bentley

G. K. Chesterton, The Man Who Was Thursday, 1908

A partner, plain

For Dan, who did not once ask when it would be finished.

A partner, formal

For my husband, Daniel Hart, with love and with thanks.

A partner, with the years in it

For Priya, and for the eleven years it took.

A mother

For my mother, who gave me the reading habit and then the nerve.

A father

For my father, who read the first chapter twice and said so.

Both parents

For Anne and Peter Hale, who filled the house with books.

A parent who has died

In memory of my father, Peter Hale, 1951 to 2020.

A parent who did not live to see it

For my mother, who ordered a copy in advance.

One child

For Rosa, who will be old enough for this one day.

Two children

For Ines and for Marta.

A child, with a promise

For Sam. The next one has the dragon in it.

The friend who read the drafts

For Kate, who read it when it was bad.

The friend who did not read it

For Tom, who has still not read it, and is forgiven.

A writing group

For the Thursday night writers.

Colleagues

For the night shift at St Mary's.

A teacher

For Mrs Okafor, who taught me where the comma goes.

An editor or agent, where you insist

For Ruth, who saw it before I did.

A reader you have in mind

For the ones who finish the acknowledgements.

Readers of an earlier book

For everybody who asked what happened to Nell.

Someone named only by initials

For J.M.R.

Someone you cannot name

For the woman on the ward in bed four.

With the reason attached

For Sam, who asked for a story with a shipwreck in it, and waited four years for one.

A dedication and an epigraph together

For Dan.

What we call the beginning is often the end.
T. S. Eliot

Where the dedication goes

The dedication page in a book sits after the copyright page and before the table of contents, on a right-hand page with nothing else on it. It carries no heading. A reader knows what it is by where it is and by the fact that the page is otherwise empty, which is also why a long dedication reads oddly: the whitespace is doing half the work.

Stevenson printed one of the most-copied dedications in English at the front of Treasure Island, and it is worth reading for its shape rather than its manners. It names the person by initials, gives the reason the book exists, and signs off as his affectionate friend, the author. Three moves, one sentence, and the reason is the part most modern dedications leave out. Ours are shorter now, but the sentence with a reason in it is still the one people remember.

If you also want an epigraph, it goes on its own page after the dedication, or beneath it if both are short. The copyright page comes before either.

One practical note on names. A dedication is permanent in a way a social media post is not: it is printed, catalogued and quoted, and it will outlive whatever the relationship is doing this year. Writers who dedicate a first novel to a partner and a second to somebody else have made that public without meaning to. This is an argument for initials, for first names, and for asking the person first, rather than an argument against dedicating a book to anyone you love.

What goes wrong on a dedication page

The first group is the one that makes a self-published book look rushed. The second causes trouble with real people. The third is a question of proportion.

Makes the book look rushed

  • a dedication that runs to a paragraph
  • an inside joke that two households can follow and no reader can
  • the word dedication printed as a heading above it
  • a full stop missing from a sentence that is clearly a sentence

Causes trouble with real people

  • a name printed without asking the person first
  • naming a partner who may not be one by publication
  • thanking an agent or editor here rather than in the acknowledgements
  • naming a child by their full name in a book that will outlive your control of it

A question of proportion

  • a reason so long it becomes a preface
  • an epigraph, a dedication and a note from the author on three consecutive pages
  • an epigraph you have not cleared, where the poet is alive

Questions & Answers

How do you write a book dedication?
Name one person, and stop. If you want more than a name, add the reason in the same sentence rather than a second one. Keep it to a line or two, put it on its own page after the copyright page, and give it no heading.
What is a dedication page in a book?
A short line at the front of a book naming the person it is offered to. It is separate from the acknowledgements, which thank the people who helped, and it is optional in a way the copyright page is not.
Does a book dedication start with to or for?
Either. To reads as an address, slightly more formal, and it is commoner in older books. For reads as a gift and is what most writers pick now. Settle on one before you name two people, because a dedication that switches halfway looks like an oversight.
How long should a book dedication be?
One sentence in most cases, and rarely more than two lines of type. The page is mostly empty on purpose, and the shortest dedications are the ones readers quote back to each other.
Where does the dedication page go in a book?
After the copyright page and before the table of contents, on a right-hand page. It is the third or fourth thing in the front matter, depending on whether you have a half title.
Can you dedicate a book to someone who has died?
Yes. It is one of the commonest dedications there is, and the convention is to name them plainly, with their years if you want them. Resist explaining the loss. In memory of does the work, and so does a plain for.
Do you need permission to dedicate a book to someone?
Legally, no. In practice, ask. A dedication puts a real name into print permanently, and people have strong feelings about being named in a book they have not read.
What is the difference between a dedication and acknowledgements?
A dedication names one or two people and sits at the front of the book on its own page. Acknowledgements thank the people who helped, run to several paragraphs, and usually sit at the back.

Open a chapter. Everything it needs is already beside it.

The cast, the places, the rules you invented, the note you left yourself last November. Nothing to hunt for, nothing to keep in sync by hand — and with the friction gone, the days you write start adding up.