The Perils and Possibilities of the Book Dedication: Anne Lock, John Knox, John Calvin, Queen Elizabeth, and the Duchess of Suffolk

The 'Epistle' prefacing Anne Lock's Sermons of John Calvin (1560) is a fascinating paratext that sheds light on laywomen's role in disseminating works by continental reformers and on the way translation could be inflected by socio-political challenges. Lock's dedication to the Duchess of Suffolk responds to the recent uproar in England over the relations between John Calvin, John Knox, and the Genevan exiles, and to cultural anxieties about laywomen's religious teaching. Importantly, Lock depicts Calvin's Geneva as an apothecary's shop that heals an exemplary English noblewoman rather than as a haven for disgruntled subjects hostile to female rule.