For a lot of dreamweaver you don't need to write the html at all, you just add text boxes, pictures and stuff and the html is already written behind it. Linking stuff is probably the most taxing aspect and that's not hard.
If you know html, you can then adjust stuff as necessary, but you could create a web site without doing any of that.
Html is also really easy to work out what's going on, so I'm sure with your html book you can work things out. Also Dreamweaver should have an online help to assist. Failing that is you ever get stuck whilst geeking (coding), the internet is your friend. Chances are if you have a question it will have been answered already..