Renowned publisher, acknowledged Hellenist, printer close to bankruptcy, poet and writer Henri Estienne (1530-1598) readily uses the opening quires of his publications to invite a prefatory correspondence with his readers. He made it a habit, one that could be considered an authorial signature for volumes emanating from his presses, to begin his books with an initial preface of dedication followed by a second one addressed to “the friend of the Muses.” The latitude of these introductory texts is apparent in the diversity of postures the author takes in them, but also in the postures that he imposes on his dedicatees and reader-friends. Moreover, the fiction of a correspondence with the reader implied in these prefatory letters is often continued within the book through the creation of space for readers to write their own words: blank quire, blank page, intervals between chapters. In fact, the author-publisher not only invites his readers to become editors themselves, but also challenges the critical reader to compete with him on the writing terrain. Thus, the familiarity of friendship permits an equality between dedicatees and author just as it prevents the reader’s censorship of the author’s work. Above all, it establishes, at the core of the new textual object which the printed book is, the impermanence of improvisation, the response space and the equal, frank reciprocity of friends.