Derval Conroy concludes the focus in the collection on the seventeenth century with an examination of the printed text. The numerous accompanying elements included in printed plays – peritexts – were key to the reader’s reception, argues Conroy. Concentrating on two of these, dedications and prefaces/addresses, and in the light of recent scholarship regarding theatre and female agency – women as protagonists, dramatists, readers, spectators and patrons – Conroy accounts for the vital role played by peritexts in the economy of exchange, patronage, criticism and creation which characterized the early modern theatre world. After an examination of Françoise Pascal’s titlepages, her chapter focuses on how dedications to women validated women’s roles as cultural agents, creating spaces for the female reader–spectator–critic. Consideration is then given to prefaces by the women dramatists Françoise Pascal, Mme Ulrich, Catherine Bernard and Marie-Anne Barbier, and how they use these printed spaces to defend their work, their foray into the public space of playwriting, or more broadly their dramatic vision.

Nobody hates like a Greek neighbour does, to paraphrase Simon Hornblower. But did this reflect a genuine inimical attitude, or are there more layers to commemorative practices? An analysis of the neighbourly commemorative practices reveals a different reality. Looking at dedications, festivals and literary sources provides a more nuanced insight. Rather than a preference for Panhellenic arenas to propagate a warring rivalry to the largest audience, local venues and spaces were preferred. The thinking behind this localised commemoration are the intentions to strengthen local cohesion vis-à-vis a known ‘other’, in this case the neighbouring polity. Dedications at sanctuaries like Olympia or Delphi were inspired by a desire to proclaim credentials for leadership over all of Greece, rather than stress the localised interactions. Often these were made with or in relation to the Spartans, meaning these sanctuaries provided a different audience for other goals. This becomes clearest by looking at a local sanctuary, the Amphiareion at Oropos. Here both polities aimed to promote their ownership by mostly targeting local audiences. This example demonstrates the potential of contested sanctuaries for understanding local rivalries and commemorative practices and how they acted as mirrors for neighbourly relations.

Pater’s individual volumes of essays were republished and reprinted many times in the years following his death. The books passed from hand to hand, and entered the second-hand market, often featuring brief inscriptions which indicate that they were proffered as gifts, in addition to more revealing marks of ownership comprising underlinings and marginal annotations. This postscript considers a small sample of such books, helpful in illustrating the diversity and orientation of Pater’s posthumous readership. Ranging from an early copy of Appreciations bought as a schoolboy by an eminent English scholar to a pocket edition of the same work presented to a prospective Oxford student, these books testify to the continuing appeal of Pater’s writings. An underlying theme to be followed is the vexed question of Pater’s perceived relevance to the study of English literature while the subject itself was acquiring its institutional framework in British universities. Some indications of Pater’s American readership, and his appeal to the more flexible curricula of the ‘new universities’ of the 1960s, are also relevant to the context under consideration here.

The surviving collection of Catullus’ poems evidently derives from a parchment codex edition created probably in the second century AD. This chapter argues that it combined seven previously separate libelli – (1) poems 2–14, (2) poems 14b–53, (3) poem 61, (4) poem 62, (5) poem 63, (6) poem 64, (7) poems 65–116 – that had been designed as Catullus’ self-chosen body of work from 56 to early 54 BC, that is, from the start of his poetic career to the point where his brother’s death changed everything. Poem 1 was a personalized dedication of one particular copy, and poems 54–60, not intended for publication, were added by the owner of one particular copy. The first libellus was the Passer Catulli referred to by Martial, the second was introduced by a poem set in a bookshop. The ‘long poems’ were separate libelli, but their order is probably the poet’s own. Early in 54 BC, persuaded by Caesar to abandon direct abuse and invective, Catullus turned to writing for the stage.

This chapter surveys the major Athenian inscriptional genres as well as their placement and distribution over time, and attempts to convey what it might have meant to a passerby to experience the ‘inscribed’ city.

The chapter focuses on the initial circulation of texts in written form. It asks how female authors promoted the publication of their own works in manuscript and print, showing how women copied these works or had them copied and how they gradually became more confident in entering the public world of print publication. It considers how women in the role of patrons promoted the circulation of manuscript and printed texts composed by others, mainly by men. It then shows to what extent and why women were chosen to play another kind of role in the print publication of texts, by acting as dedicatees for authors, editors and publishers.