Pen name

A pen name, nom de plume, nom de guerre, or literary double, is a pseudonym adopted by an author for various reasons. Authors may use a pen name to replace a long, difficult, or uninteresting name, or a name likely to be confused with the name of another writer or notable individual, or avoid overexposure. Authors who write in different styles use pen names to avoid confusing regular readers. Some female authors have used male pen names to ensure that their works were accepted by publishers or taken seriously. A pseudonym may also be used to protect the writer, in cases of exposé books about espionage or crime.

In Western literature

As with any form of pseudonym, an author may choose a pen name for one of many reasons. A writer may choose a pen name if his or her usual name is long, difficult to spell or pronounce, thought to be uninteresting by a publisher, or is likely to be confused with the name of another writer or notable individual. Józef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski wrote under the name Joseph Conrad, for instance, and Cecil Smith wrote under the pen name C.S. Forester. Likewise, if a writer feels that his or her usual name does not work well with his genre, he or she may choose to change it. Pearl Gray dropped his first name and wrote his Western novels under his middle and (changed) last name, Zane Grey.

An author who wishes to write in a different genre or created world than that in which his or her fiction is normally found may use a pen name so as not to upset or confuse regular readers. Science fiction writer Robert A. Heinlein set his early stories in a single future history; he used pseudonyms when writing stories not in this setting. (These stories were later reprinted under his real name.) An author who does not wish to be personally connected to his or her work may also wish to use a pen name. Histoire d'O (The Story of O), an erotic novel of sadomasochism and sexual slavery, was written by an editorial secretary with a reputation of near-prudery who used the pseudonym Pauline Réage.

Sometimes authors write under different pen names and for different reasons. C. S. Lewis, the author and scholar, before his conversion to Christianity, published two books: a collection of poems (Spirits in Bondage) and a single narrative poem (Dymer) under the pen name "Clive Hamilton". This was done so as not to harm his serious academic reputation as a don at Oxford University. Much later in his life, his wife's cancer went into a remarkable yet brief remission until her eventual relapse and death in 1960. Lewis’s book A Grief Observed describes his experience of bereavement in such a raw and personal fashion that he originally released it under the pseudonym "N.W. Clerk" to keep readers from associating the book with him.

Authors who regularly write in several genres may have different pen names for each genre. For instance, the romance writer Nora Roberts writes erotic thrillers under the pen name J.D. Robb, and Samuel Langhorne Clemens used the aliases "Mark Twain" and "Sieur Louis de Conte" for different works. Similarly, an author who writes both fiction and non-fiction (such as the mathematician and fantasy writer Charles Dodgson, who wrote as Lewis Carroll, or the American television commentator Bill O'Reilly, who wrote a thriller under a pen name) may use a pseudonym for his fiction writing, especially if he is well-known in another field under his usual name.

Occasionally a pen name is employed to avoid overexposure. Prolific authors for pulp magazines often had two and sometimes three short stories appearing in one issue of a magazine; the editor would create several fictitious author names so that readers would not realize this. Robert Heinlein wrote stories under pseudonyms so that John W. Campbell could publish more of his work in his magazine at the same time.

Some female authors have used male pen names to ensure that their works were accepted by publishers or taken seriously by the public. Mary Ann Evans wrote under the pen name George Eliot, and Charlotte Brontë published under the name Currer Bell. Karen Blixen wrote the very successful "Out of Africa" under the pen name "Isak Dinesen". More recently, women who write in genres normally written by men may choose to use a neutral pen name, such as J.D. Robb, J.K. Rowling or K. A. Applegate. Along the same lines, author Robin Hobb chose that androgynous pen name when she set out to write a fantasy trilogy featuring a male leading character.

In some forms of fiction, the pen name adopted is actually the name of the lead character. This is often meant to suggest to the reader that the book is meant as a fictional autobiography. Daniel Handler used the pseudonym Lemony Snicket to make his books appear to be records of the lives of the Baudelaires. Some series fiction is published under one pen name even though more than one author may have contributed to the series. In some cases the first books in the series were written by one writer, but subsequent books were written by ghost writers. For instance, many of the later books in the The Saint adventure series were not written by Leslie Charteris, the originator of the series.

Collaborative authors may choose to have their works published under a single pen name. Frederic Dannay and Manfred B. Lee published their mystery novels and stories under the pen name Ellery Queen. The writers who wrote Atlanta Nights, a deliberately badly-written book meant to expose the publishing firm PublishAmerica, used the pen name Travis Tea.

Pseudepigraphy, is a particular form of pseudonym or pen name in which authors adopt the name of well-known figures as the publicly ascribed author to attain greater interest or credibility for the work. In some cases the pseudepigraphy is the result of pious tradition. It was traditionally employed in the Western world from Hellenistic times all the way up to the Middle Ages, particularly in theology and scripture. Examples include Pseudo-Dionysius or, according to academic scholars, the ascribed Solomonic authorship of the Song of Songs.

A pseudonym may also be used to protect the writer, as in the case of Andy McNab, the former SAS soldier famous for his book about a failed SAS mission titled Bravo Two Zero. (However, some critics have suggested that the primary motivation here may have been to boost the mystique of the SAS to help market McNab's books.) Ibn Warraq has been used by dissident Muslim authors. Author Brian O'Nolan was forced to use the pen names "Flann O'Brien" and "Myles na gCopaleen" because at the time Irish civil servants were not allowed to publish works under their own names. Sometimes multiple authors will write related books under the same pseudonym; examples include Nicolas Bourbaki in non-fiction and T. H. Lain in fiction.

In Persian and Urdu poetry

Note: List of Urdu language poets provides pen names for a range of Urdu poets.

A shâ'er (a poet who writes she'rs in Urdu or Persian) almost always has a takhallus, a pen name, traditionally placed at the end of the name when referring to the poet by his full name. For example Hafez is a pen-name for Shams al-Din, and thus the usual way to refer to him would be Shams al-Din Hafez or just Hafez. Mirza Asadullah Beg Khan (his official name and title) is referred to as Mirza Asadullah Khan Ghalib, or just Mirza Ghalib.

India

In Indian Languages, writers put it at the end of their names, like Ramdhari Singh 'Dinkar'. Sometimes they also write under their pen name without their actual name like Firaq Gorakhpuri.

In Japan

Japanese poets who write haiku often use a haiga or penname. The famous haiku poet Matsuo Bashō had used fifteen different haiga before he became fond of a banana plant (bashō) that had been given to him by a disciple and started using it as his penname at the age of 38.

Similar to a pen name, Japanese artists usually have a gō or art-name, which might change a number of times during their career.

In some cases, artists adopted different gō at different stages of their career, usually to mark significant changes in their life. One of the most extreme examples of this is Hokusai, who in the period 1798 to 1806 alone used no fewer than six.

"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 Holt (newspaper 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.

• Lemony Snicket: used by Daniel Handler for the A Series of Unfortunate Events Stories.

Etymology

It is interesting to note that Nom de plume did not originate in France. According to H. G. Fowler and F. G. Fowler, in The King's English, Ch. 1, p. 43 (Foreign Words, #5), nom de plume "evolved" in Britain, where people wanting a "literary" phrase, failed to understand nom de guerre, which already existed in French. Since guerre means war in French, nom de guerre did not make sense to the British, who, according to the Fowler brothers, failed to see the French "metaphor". It appears that nom de plume was later exported to France (H. W. Fowler's Modern English Usage). See French-language expression, although amongst French speakers pseudonyme is much more common.

See also

• Stage name - the equivalent concept among performers.
• Chinese courtesy name
• List of pseudonyms
• Art-name
• Pseudepigraphy
• Ghostwriter
• List of notable pen names

External links

• Pen Names
• How to Choose a Pen Name
• The King's English, H. W. Fowler & F. G. Flower