Volume’s dedication to its author? (4)
I believe the answer is:
tome
'volume's' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
'its author?' is the wordplay.
'its' becomes 'to' (I can't explain this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'author?' becomes 'me' (the author of the crossword).
'to'+'me'='TOME'
'dedication to' acts as a link.
I am not very happy about this link. Some or all of it may belong to another bit of the clue.
(Other definitions for tome that I've seen before include "dictionary?" , "War and Peace, say" , "Heavy volume" , "Hefty volume" , "A hefty book" .)