Pseudonyms, pen names, noms de plume — call them what you will, they are false names adopted by authors for a variety of reasons. Keeping the author’s identity a secret to protect against attacks, women writers publishing under male names to be accepted more widely, someone who is well known in another field not wishing to be known for their novels and a writer taking on a new name to work in a new genre are some of the reasons why a writer takes up a pseudonym. Let’s take a look at some well known literary pseudonyms and the stories behind them.
George Sand was a 19th century novelist whose books skewered social conventions. In real life, Sand was Amantine Lucile Aurore Dupin. The pen name George Sand was probably suggested by her early collaborator Jules Sandeau.
Her collaborations with him were published under the name Jules Sand. It’s also likely that Dupin appreciated the relative freedom accorded to men in general as she was known to wear men’s clothes, claiming they were cheaper and more comfortable than the gowns 19th century women had to wear!
George Eliot was another 19th century author whose novels were known for their realistic, psychologically probing pictures of rural life. Not exactly a barrel of laughs Mary Ann Evans, the woman behind the pen name, was very serious about her craft. Wanting to be taken seriously at a time when women novelists were associated with lurid Gothic romances, she chose to publish under a masculine name.
Our last George — George Orwell — was really a man. Born Eric Arthur Blair, this 20th century novelist gave us classic works of political satire in the form of novels like 1984 and Animal Farm as well as a number of other sensitive, socially conscious novels and a bumper crop of probing, intelligent essays on every topic under the sun. He adopted the name George Orwell for his first book Down and Out in Paris and London, a true-life chronicle of his experiences as a tramp. He wanted to spare his family any embarrassment. Since the name was already established, he continued to use it for his future books and had circles of friends and colleagues who knew him as George Orwell.
Most school children read The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Alice in Wonderland, or at least excerpts from these books. The authors of both these books used pseudonyms.
Mark Twain was born Samuel Langhorne Clemens. In his early days as a newspaperman, he often contributed short humorous pieces under assumed names, which was a common practice for this kind of light-hearted writing.
His experiences working the Mississippi riverboats had acquainted him with the slang of that trade, including calls referring to depth measures — mark twain being a depth of about two fathoms or 12 feet, a safe depth for the boats to pass.
He was also inspired by an old river hand who wrote small articles full of practical tips on river craft under this name.
Clemens hoped that his own writing would be as useful and truthful as the other Mark Twain’s. He also lived a varied, exciting life in which he cultivated an epic moustache, palled around with Nikola Tesla and shared his home with a large army of cats.
Charles Lutwidge Dodson was a mathematician and an amateur photographer back in the 1850s when photography was still a very novel hobby. It is likely that he chose to publish under a pseudonym in order to separate his literary production from his serious work as a mathematician, logician and a deacon in the Anglican church. ‘Lewis Carroll’ is supposed to be an elaborate play on his actual name with Carroll being a form of Charles and Lutwidge being replaced by its English form Lewis. Known best for his chronicles of the little girl Alice’s zany adventures in weird dream worlds, this brilliant man was equally comfortable in the worlds of logic and nonsense.
J K Rowling is a pen name for Joanne Rowling. The Harry Potter books were published under the shortened version of the author’s name because, even in 1997 it was thought that a gender neutral byline would be better for sales. Since then she has written mystery novels for grown ups under the name Robert Galbraith.
A new genre, a new name — but assiduous investigators snooped around, even submitting the Galbraith books to linguistic analysis — and ferreted out his true identity as the most popular fantasy author for a whole generation.