A
pen name or nom de plume is a pseudonym adopted by an
author. Nom de plume is a French-language
expression.
Some authors take on pen
names to conceal their
identity:
for example the Brontë sisters, who felt they would
either
not be published at all, or not taken seriously as
women
authors. Others do so for fear of violence or
harassment,
for example Ibn Warraq. Others do so to segregate
different
types of work: Lewis Carroll took a pen name
because as
Charles Lutwidge Dodgson he wrote linguistic
papers;
Agatha
Christie wrote romantic novels as Mary Westmacott.
Many
writers, particularly in genre fiction, are so
prolific
that they are forced to take pen names in order to
sell
their books to different publishers: this is the
case,
for
instance, with John Dickson Carr, who, in the
1930s,
was
publishing two detective stories a year under his
own
name
and another two, through another publisher, under
the
pen
name Carter Dickson. Pseudonyms are not always
secret:
Stendhal's real name was known: at least one critic
disparaged his pen name as an affectation.
Famous pen names
Martín Adán (Rafael de la Fuente Benavides), 1907 -
1985;
Peruvian
poet Cecil Adams (author of The Straight Dope column—
real
name
unknown)
Æ,
used by George William Russell, 1867 - 1935;
Irish
poet
Guillaume Apollinaire (Guillaume Albert Vladimir
Apollinaire de Kostrowitzky), 20
th-
century French
poet,
writer, and art critic
Tudor Arghezi (Ion N. Theodorescu), 20th-century
Romanian
poet and children's author
Avi (Edward Irving Wortis), writer of children's
books
Ba Jin (Li Yaotang), 20th-century Chinese writer
Richard Bachman (Stephen King) 20th-century horror
author
W. N. P. Barbellion (Bruce Frederick Cummings),
20th
century diarist
'BB' (Denys Watkins-Pitchford), 20th-century
illustrator
and children's book author
Beachcomber (D.B. Wyndham-Lewis and John Bingham
Morton),
used for the surrealist humorous column "By the
Way" in
the
Daily Express
Acton Bell, Currer Bell, and Ellis Bell (Anne
Brontë,
Charlotte Brontë, Emily Brontë)
Nicolas Bourbaki (a group of mainly French 20th-
century
mathematicians)
Mary Westmacott (Agatha Christie) 20th century
British
writer
Kir Bulychev (Кир Булычёв) Igor Vsevolodovich
Mozheyko
(И́горь Все́володович Може́йко), 20th century Russian
science
fiction writer and historian
Anthony Burgess (John <'Jack'> Burgess Wilson),
20th
century British writer
Lewis Carroll (Charles Lutwidge Dodgson), 19th
century
British author, mathematician, Anglican clergyman,
logician, and amateur photographer, writer of
"Alice's
Adventures in Wonderland"
Cassandra (William Connor), 20th century left-wing
journalist for The Daily Mirror.
"House" names
Book and magazine publishers have sometimes used a
penname
or pseudonym as the author of a series of stories that
would be shared by any number of authors. Often these
works
are done as a "work for hire" with the writers
receiving a
flat fee and no royalties. Examples include:
The Stratemeyer Syndicate used a number of house names.
The
Syndicate was quite secretive; ghostwriters were
contractually obliged never to reveal their authorship,
and
many ghostwriters remain unknown. Some of Stratemeyer's
most famous house names include:
Victor Appleton for the Tom Swift children's adventure
novels
Franklin W. Dixon for the Hardy Boys mysteries.
Carolyn Keene for the Nancy Drew mysteries, as well as
The
Dana Girls, which featured detective sisters.
Also from the publisher Grosset & Dunlap, but not part
of
Stratemeyer:
John Blaine for the Rick Brant (more realistic science/
adventure) series
Bruce Campbell for the Ken Holr reporter/
adventure) series
Maxwell Grant: used by Street and Smith Publications,
the
publishers of numerous pulp magazines, for The Shadow.
Watty Piper: used By Platt & Munk for The Little Engine
That Could and its spinoffs as well as numerous
unrelated
children's books.
Kenneth Robeson: used by Condé Nast Publications for
the
Doc Savage stories.
More summaries about the Pen name of poets