Pen Names - by Kirsty McHugh & Ian Scott (Hardcover)

About the Book

Writers publish under pen names for a variety of reasons. Some use them to fit in while others employ them to stand out from the crowd. Pen Names traces the history of literary aliases from the nineteenth century to the present day through forty novelists, poets, and playwrights. These include famous pseudonymous writers such as George Eliot (Mary Anne Evans), Currer Bell (Charlotte Brontèe), Lewis Carroll (Charles Lutwidge Dodgson), George Orwell (Eric Blair), crime writers such as Josephine Tey and Nicci French, and those lesser-known writers whose real identities have been obscured behind their literary aliases. Pen Names also explores the wide range of motivations for taking on new names, including gender, the use of pseudonyms for different genres, and writing as a team. Collectively, the stories in this book give the audience unusual insights into authors, publishers, and readers over the last two hundred years.

Book Synopsis

Your favorite author may not be who they say they are.

The stories behind why an author chose their literary alias can be just as compelling as the works that they wrote.

Writers publish under pen names for a variety of reasons. Some use them to fit in while others employ them to stand out from the crowd. Pen Names traces the history of literary aliases from the nineteenth century to the present day through forty novelists, poets, and playwrights. These include famous pseudonymous writers such as George Eliot (Mary Anne Evans), Currer Bell (Charlotte Brontë), Lewis Carroll (Charles Lutwidge Dodgson), George Orwell (Eric Blair), crime writers such as Josephine Tey and Nicci French, and those lesser-known writers whose real identities have been obscured behind their literary aliases. Pen Names also explores the wide range of motivations for taking on new names, including gender, the use of pseudonyms for different genres, and writing as a team. Collectively, the stories in this book give the audience unusual insights into authors, publishers, and readers over the last two hundred years.

Review Quotes

"You'll be captivated by this beautiful little book from National Library of Scotland curators Kirsty McHugh and Ian Scott. From the 1820s to the present, it brims with detail and anecdotes about our best-loved authors and their pseudonyms."-- "The Sunday Post"

About the Author

Kirsty McHugh is a curator at the National Library of Scotland. Ian Scott is a curator at the National Library of Scotland.