I’ve been thinking about pseudonyms. Pen names. Nom de plumes. So far both my published stories have been under two different names – neither of them my own.
But more about that in a future post. For the moment, I got caught up in a google search about authors and their names, both real and fake. Thought you might be interested.
Of course, we can’t talk about pen names without reference to the women who have published under either male names or gender-hiding capitals. The first lot would not have been published if the publisher thought they were a woman (egads!). The second lot tend to have a male target audience, and god forbid men should buy action, detective or boy wizard books written BY A FEMALE!!
- ‘George Eliot’ was Mary Ann Evans
- ‘George Sand’ was Amandine Lucie Aurore Dupin
- ‘Henry Handel Richardson’ was Ethel Florence Lindsay Richardson
- ‘P.L. Travers’ is Helen Goff
- ‘Robin Hobb’ is Margaret Astrid Lindholm Ogden
- ‘J.K. Rowling’ is, of course, Joanne Rowling
Then there are the authors who write in multiple genres. By using a pen name they can create a branded author for each genre, or change gender to fit the genre.
‘Nora Roberts’ (pen name for Eleanor Marie Robertson), and incredibly successful romance author, used ‘J.D. Robb’ to write detective fiction. The pen name allowed her to create the different brand, and also was masculine enough to appeal to the male target audience.
Similarly, Ruth Rendell used ‘Barbara Vine’ when she started writing romance novels, and Agatha Christie used ‘Mary Westmacott’ for the same reason.
Dean Koontz has 10 pen names! I didn’t know there were that many genres … Although his other reason for using pen names was that publishers used to be wary of publishing more than one book per author per year. Something to do with saturating the market. This is also why Stephen King wrote as ‘Richard Bachman’ for a while.
Authors who get ridiculously famous writing a particular type of story sometimes want to see if they do have talent or if people are just buying their books because of their name. So they’ll publish a work of a different genre under a pen name to see if it stands on its own. Again, think J.K. Rowling writing as ‘Robert Galbraith’ post-Harry Potter.
Some authors wanted to Anglicise their names for ease of pronunciation, or for acceptance in their new land.
- ‘Joseph Contrad’ was Jozef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski
- ‘Sidney Sheldon’ was Sidney Schechtel
And some authors wanted to retain their anonymity, or their family’s privacy.
- ‘George Orwell’ was Eric Arthur Blair
- ‘Lewis Carroll’ (no relation, unfortunately) was Charles Lutwidge Dodgson
Then we’ve got the problem of author credit for two writers working together. ‘Ellery Queen’ stories were written by Frederic Dannay and Manfred B. Lee. But my favourite is perhaps ‘Emma Darcy’, which was the pen name of husband and wife team Wendy Brennan and Frank Brennan. I gather they took ‘Emma’ from the novel of the same name, and ‘Darcy’ from Pride and Prejudice. Both of these novels were by Jane Austen, the mother of all modern romance. Appropriate, as ‘Emma Darcy’ is one of our most famous and prolific romance authors.
I think I like Samuel Langhorne Clemens reason for becoming ‘Mark Twain’ best. He chose riverboat slang as a pen name so it would give his tales a southern air. How’s that for lack of ego and devotion to your art?
