JOIN USHe wrote, she wrote
In 1846, a book of poetry rather blandly titled ‘Poems by Currer, Ellis and Acton Bell’ was published. Initially, it sold a mere two copies. And hence no one likely wondered who the Bell brothers were. Some years later, the identity of the Bell brothers was revealed. As it turned out, the three poets were the sisters — Charlotte, Emily and Anne Bronte! This was the first book by the sisters that actually made it to print and is hence significant.
Why did the sisters choose to write under male pseudonyms? One possible reason was that the sisters were rather reclusive and did not perhaps want to come into the public eye. But the more likely reason is that it was a time of prejudice against female authors and they didn’t want their gender to come in the way of their literary merit.
Others of that period too adopted this stratagem.
Mary Ann Evans (1819-80) published her novels (Silas Marner, The Mill by the Floss and Middlemarch among others) by the name of George Eliot. By the time her first novel (Adam Bede) was published in 1859, Eliot or Evans had already developed a reputation as an editor, translator and critic. She was also in what was considered a scandalous live-in relationship with George Lewes. Seeking to mask both her existing literary reputation and her private life, Evans opted for a pseudonym. ‘George’ was chosen because it was her partner’s first name and ‘Eliot’ because, she said, it was ‘a good mouth-filling, easily pronounced word’.
That Evans, despite her reasons, chose to publish under a male pseudonym was ironic. In 1856, in an essay entitled ‘Silly Novels by Lady Novelists’, she criticized what she felt were the trivial and ridiculous plots of contemporary fiction written by women. Her own novels were of course artistic triumphs. Publishing under a female pseudonym may have perhaps helped overturn the public view about women writers perhaps…
Another George of that period was George Sand, the French novelist, whose original name was Amantine Lucile Aurore Dupin (1804–76). Extremely popular as a writer, Sand led an unconventional life. She was a feminist who wore men’s clothing, smoked in public and took on many lovers (including the composer and pianist, Frederic Chopin).
In Virginia Woolf's A Room of One's Own, Sand, George Eliot and Charlotte Brontë are all characterized as ‘victims of inner strife as their writings prove, sought ineffectively to veil themselves by using the name of a man’. Woolf herself never adopted a nom de plume though she has written of how the problem of identity is something of an affliction for the writer, specifically, the essayist of whom she wrote: ‘Never to be yourself and yet always — that is the problem.’
A surprising addition to the male pseudonym list is Louisa May Alcott, the author of the much-loved Little Women. Under the name A M Barnard, she wrote a number of thrillers in the 1860s. This piece of literary skullduggery wasn’t actually unearthed until 1942. So well had she covered her tracks.
In recent times, J K Rowling adopted a male-sounding name for her Harry Potter series and later, after attaining fame and fortune, went with ‘Robert Galbraith’ for her crime novels since she didn’t want her fame to cloud her readers’ judgements.
While the male pseudonym is not uncommon for women writers, there are cases of male writers taking on female pseudonyms too. L Frank Baum of Wizard of Oz fame adopted the name Edith Van Dyne to write a series of novels in the Little Women mould. Another male writer who wrote under a female pseudonym was Charles Leslie McFarlane. Under the name ‘Carolyn Keene’ (yes, of Nancy Drew fame), he wrote the first four volumes of the Dana Girls series. Interestingly under the name ‘Franklin W Dixon’, he also wrote a few Hardy Boys novels. Since all of these novels were published by a writing syndicate and many writers were involved in their production (literally, given the large numbers), there were probably others too, who were taking on pseudonyms of the gender they didn’t belong to.
What’s in a name, did you ask? An open question, really, ain’t it?