For centuries, women authors’ names in western literature (and other cultural traditions) were not featured on their own work. Writers such as Jane Austen, Mary Shelley and Frances Burney were all originally published as ‘Anonymous’. Slowly, during the latter half of the nineteenth and into the twentieth century, the names of female authors began to appear on their own works. But even in modern times, publishers for a range of reasons, have not featured some renowned and best-selling female authors with their own names, at least before they became famous. This is especially prominent for female authors writing in genres with a large male audience, such as Fantasy or Crime fiction. The Reclaim Her Name campaign has taken steps to redress this imbalance, publishing two dozen works under each author’s own name. Notable examples include Middlemarch. However, this campaign has not been without controversy. Some critics claim that by removing the original published name, there is a missing historical context for why these authors were forced into using men’s names in the first place. By adopting those authorial personas, some of these writers were able to achieve greater freedom and social mobility than would have been available to them at the time.
Here are some notable examples of women authors whose books were first published under men’s names:
Charlotte, Emily and Anne Bronte, writing as ‘Currer, Ellis and Acton Bell’
Elizabeth Gaskell writing as ‘Cotton Mather Mills’
Amantine Lucile Aurore Dupin, writing as ‘George Sand’
Mary Ann Evans, writing as ‘George Eliot’
Louisa May Alcott, writing as ‘A.M. Barnard’
Violet Paget writing as ‘Vernon Lee’
Ethel Florence Lindesay Richardson, writing as ‘Henry Handel Richardson’
Stella Miles Franklin, writing as ‘Miles Franklin’
Marguerite Antonia Radclyffe Hall, writing as ‘Radclyffe Hall’
Karen Blixen writing as ‘Isak Dinesen’
Alice Mary Norton, writing as ‘Andre Norton’
Nelle Harper Lee, writing as ‘Harper Lee’
Gwen Harwood writing as ‘Walter Lehmann’
Nora Roberts writing as ‘J.D. Robb’
Joanne Rowling writing as ‘J K Rowling’ and ‘Robert Galbraith’
What do you think? Are there other women writers you know who have published under male pseudonyms? What about men writing under women’s names? And how about some writers who have published under both, such as Ellis Peters (Edith Pargeter)?