"The dedication of the novel is the most personal and public of gestures, and yet we don't often stop to consider how it came to be inspired." That's according to the sleeve note of Once Again to Zelda: Fifty Great Dedications and Their Stories, which takes its title from F Scott Fitzgerald's dedication in The Great Gatsby.

The classic image of the novelist is one in which we see her smiling with satisfaction as the last page is placed on the pile and the dedication is written - "To Frank O'Connor and Nathaniel Branden" - the husband and lover of Ayn Rand, to whom she dedicated her mammoth novel, Atlas Shrugged.

In some ways, dedications are similar to tattoos: they're made in a particular moment and act as signs of loyalty, love and passion. But of course, they're set in ink, not stone, and don't require lasers to remove.

Think of Beethoven's famous change of heart when he dedicated his third symphony to Joseph Franz Maximilian Lobkowicz instead of Napoleon, in whom he had lost faith after the man made himself emperor.

There's plenty of tragedy and romance in these 50 dedications, notes to people who are no longer the wives, husbands, lovers or even friends of the authors, like carved initials on tree trunks or names set in cement. Glimpses of forgotten histories and relationships that, especially in the case of dead authors, make these few lines seem like the most important clue to some sort of insight into the minds of their authors. In some cases, they paint a different picture retrospectively.

Oscar Wilde's heartbreaking dedication of De Profundis, "Dear Bosie", turns the piece into "the longest and most heartfelt letter ever published". Fitzgerald's, "Once again to Zelda", seems, in light of the tragic path of their relationship, both heartfelt and ill-fated.

As an author, you always run the risk of leaving someone out of your dedication or offering your novel to someone who doesn't want it.

When Salman Rushdie dedicated The Satanic Verses to his then wife, Marianne Wiggins, he had no idea of the effect the book was going to have on his life. He could never have guessed that Wiggins might decide that having her name in a despised book by a man with a price on his head was potentially life threatening. After five months of living in safe houses, Wiggins gave up on Rushdie, but the book is still hers. There's also the chance that you may choose an inappropriate dedication - should Joost really be dedicating his sordid tale of sex drugs and Amor's toilet habits to his children? Perhaps with the benefit of hindsight he might like to change it to read, "For Rugby".

You could avoid these pitfalls by stealing from the Beatles and dedicating your book, "With love from me to you", making your five readers feel very special or greatly offended.

If I were to inherit the ability to write a novel today, I know who I would dedicate it to, but ask me in 10 years, and who knows. Perhaps knowing your dedicatee would be a good starting point. Instead of writing the dedication last, you could proceed from the dedication, knowing who your reader would be and composing the work for them. If they disappointed you before you'd finished, you could always pull a Beethoven and cross them out, though I think I'd include the cross-out in the final draft just to let them know "this could have been yours".