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12 Modern Writers Who Use a Pen Name

We all learnt about George Eliot, but did you know that many contemporary authors have written under pseudonyms? Try guessing their reasons while leafing through our selection.

By Livia Formisani

Culture

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12 Modern Writers Who Use a Pen Name.

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John le Carré: A pen name is a necessity when identity is a matter of national security. Author David Cornwell started publishing his acclaimed espionage novels as John le Carré while serving the British intelligence in the 1960s. He left his job in 1964, one year after The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, to devote himself full-time to writing.

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12 Modern Writers Who Use a Pen Name.

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Elena Ferrante: Recently nominated as one of Time’s “100 Most Influential People of the Year”, shortlisted for the Man Booker prize 2016, the multi-awarded Italian author of the successful My Brilliant Friend cycle (aka the Neapolitan novels) has always kept her identity secret, as she claims that “books, once they are written, have no need of their authors.”

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12 Modern Writers Who Use a Pen Name.

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E.L. James: The record-breaking author of Fifty Shades of Grey was born Erika Mitchell (Leonard is her married name). Before her bestselling Fifty Shades series, the English writer also penned adult Twilight fan fiction under the pseudonym Snowqueens Icedragon.

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12 Modern Writers Who Use a Pen Name.

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J.K. Rowling: Both the Harry Potter series and the The Casual Vacancy were published by the English author under her real name – or almost, as she has no actual middle name. But the world-famous writer went on to author three books as Robert Galbraith, in an attempt to “work without hype or expectation”, she revealed.

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12 Modern Writers Who Use a Pen Name.

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Ellery Queen: American cousins Frederic Dannay and Manfred Bennington Lee wrote over 30 novels together as Ellery Queen, with Dannay also editing Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. They published another four novels under the name Barnaby Ross. What’s more, both Dannay and Lee were pseudonyms, too. [Photo: Al Aumuller, Library of Congress]

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12 Modern Writers Who Use a Pen Name.

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Patricia Highsmith: Her short stories were first published on Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, but the multi-award winning American author would go on to write 22 novels, including Strangers on a Train and The Talented Mr. Ripley. She published The Price of Salt (later retitled Carol) as Claire Morgan in 1952 to avoid being labelled for her sexual orientation. [Photo: Open Media Ltd]

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12 Modern Writers Who Use a Pen Name.

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Eckhart Tolle: The author of self-help volumes The Power of Now and A New Earth, both of which have been no. 1 on the New York Times Bestsellers list, was born Ulrich Leonard Tölle. Reports on the reasons for adopting the first name Eckhart vary from a powerful coincidence in his life to an homage to German philosopher Meister Eckhart.

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12 Modern Writers Who Use a Pen Name.

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Ray Bradbury: Fahrenheit 451 and The Martian Chronicles, among others, rightfully earned Bradbury a prominent place in the history of science fiction and a Pulitzer Citation, but the American author also published short stories under several pseudonyms, “often because two of his stories were scheduled for the same issue of a magazine”, as reported by his biographer. [Photo: Alan Light]

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12 Modern Writers Who Use a Pen Name.

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Isaac Asimov: The iconic science fiction writer revealed in Opus 100 that, when asked to write the Lucky Starr novels, his publisher had a TV adaptation in mind. Already well-known at the time, Asimov worried about the TV series diverging too much from his books and published them as Paul French instead. [Photo: Andrew Kitzmiller/ flickr.com]

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12 Modern Writers Who Use a Pen Name.

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Stephen King: That Stephen King is a prolific author is a known fact; so much, in fact, to write for two. As it was believed that an author shouldn’t publish more than one book per year, he started to simultaneously write as Richard Bachman. A bookstore clerk recognised King’s style in Bachman’s production and contacted the author, who came out just in time to publish Misery as King.

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12 Modern Writers Who Use a Pen Name.

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Michael Crichton: The author of Jurassic Park, The Andromeda Strain as well as the ER screenplays is internationally famous, having sold over 200 million books. Remarkably, Crichton started writing to support himself while attending Harvard Medical School, using the names John Lange and Jeffrey Hudson. According to his website, “he found that he could write one book in one week and sell it for $2.500”.

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12 Modern Writers Who Use a Pen Name.

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Sophie Kinsella: Sophie Kinsella is the author of the bestselling Shopaholic book series, of which her first title Confessions of a Shopaholic, published in 2000, went on to be adapted into the eponymous film. Prior to the series, the author had successfully published five novels under her real name, Madeleine Wickham. She submitted her first Shopaholic manuscript as Kinsella for fear of embarrassment. [Photo: Elena Torre/ flickr.com]

Culture

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12 Modern Writers Who Use a Pen Name.

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