The Nom de Plume

John Singer Sargent, the American painter, was passionate about reading books.  He called reading multiple books by the same author, “reading in a wedge”. 

Like Sargent, I, too, am addicted to reading everything a favorite author has written, and then loudly lamenting about the lack of more books.  I confess to still being irrationally angry with John D. MacDonald for having died, leaving us with only 78 novels to enjoy.  (I’m not counting his short stories, since he wrote under so many different names that no one is sure how many he cranked out). 

According to magazine publishers, on more than one occasion, every story in an issue was actually written by MacDonald, but they were listed under his various pen names, such as Peter Reed, John Farrell (sometimes John Wade Farrell), Scott O'Hara, Robert Henry, Harry Reiser, or John Lane.

I spent a little time at Coas, my favorite local book store, trying to track down the various pseudonyms my favorite authors have used, since these frustrate my attempt to ‘read in a wedge’.  Thhh got me to thinking about some of the various strange pen names authors have employed.

Benjamin Franklin used a lot of pen names over the years, frequently to remain anonymous wphile writing about political topics.  His first pseudonym however, was used just to get in print.  Suspecting that his youth was the reason he failed to have any of his letters published by the local newspaper, Franklin started submitting letters as Silence Dogood, an elderly woman.  As Franklin had suspected, his letter was accepted and published by the New England Courant.

Altogether, Ms. Dogood published 14 such letters, and Franklin was addicted both to writing and inventing pen names, such as Anthony Afterwit, Alice Addertongue, Polly Baker, Harry Meanwell, Caelia Shortface, Martha Careful, Busy Body, and Benevolus.  Strangely, his most successful pen name resulted in a book that everyone is familiar with, but almost no one remembers who wrote it .  Poor Richard’s Almanac was penned under the name of Richard Saunders.

There is a great story about a young student named Ted, who was the editor of a college magazine.  After he threw a wild drunken party that violated both the school’s policy and Federal prohibition laws, Dartmouth University fired him.  Undeterred, he continued to submit satirical pieces signing them with only his middle name.  Ted’s father wanted him to give up writing and go to medical school, so when his first book was published, Ted added the title “Dr.” to his name, and Dr. Seuss became internationally famous.  (By the way, he pronounced it, “Soice”.)

There are plenty of female authors who have taken a male pseudonym to avoid the very real prejudice against female authors in the publishing world.  George Elliot is really Mary Anne Evans.  The three Brontë sisters all originally published with male ‘noms de plume’.  Even J. K. Rowling used initials instead of her first name, Joanne.  Since she has no middle name, the “K is for her grandmother, Kathleen.

Occasionally, the reverse has been true—there are a few male authors who took female names in order to sell books.  British crime novelist Martin Waites began publishing as Tania Carver after his publisher told him they were looking for female author that could write thrillers. “I could do that,” Waites told his publisher.  And he was right, the result was The Surrogate, an excellent book.  Waites continues to write under both names and says they have become two different people in his head.  Now that his wife has started to help him write the stories, I guess they have become two different people in two heads.

Perhaps one of the strangest stories of a man publishing under a woman’s name is that of US Navy Captain Walter Karig.  Writing under at least four pen names, Karig wrote manuals for the Navy artillery, scripts for the television series Victory at Sea, and several novels.  Shortly before his death, he also admitted to having written three of the Nancy Drew novels under the name Carolyn Keene.  (He also wrote a great science fiction novel, Zotz!, that I own.   The story is one that I cannot get out of my mind, and is slowly driving me mad.  Wonderful book, but don’t watch the dreadful movie with the same name.)

A few pen names have been created for commercial reasons.  Stephen King, who probably wrote two novels during the time it took me to write these 1761 words, can’t stop writing.  When his publisher warned him that writing too many books under one name might swamp the market, King started publishing his “extra” novels under the name Richard Bachmann.  When his secret identity inevitably became public knowledge, King announced that Bachman had died from “cancer of the pseudonym, a rare form of schizonomia.”

There are practical reasons to adopt, or even change a pen name.  Though Kenneth Millar published in first four novels under his own name, after his writing career was interrupted by World War II, he chose the pen name John Ross MacDonald because his wife, Margaret Millar, had established her own writing career.  After a few years, Millar changed his pen name to Ross MacDonald to avoid being confused with John D. MacDonald.  Neither writer should be confused with the excellent mystery writer, Gregory McDonald.  For a few decades, if the author was named MacDonald—no matter how it was spelled—you bought the book.

At least one pen name was adopted for national security reasons.  David John Moore Cornwell wrote a great spy novel, but couldn’t publish it under his own name for the simple reason that he was a real-life spy!  His day job was with MI5, so when Call for the Dead was published, it was under the name John le Carré. 

Some pen names defy all attempts at understanding.  When William Sydney Porter was imprisoned at the Ohio State Penitentiary for embezzling funds while working at an Austin bank, he took up writing short stories under the name of O. Henry to pass the time.  Who was the inspiration for this choice?  Porter never explained, but one of his prison guards was named Orrin Henry.

As I have said in many previous posts, one of my favorite authors is Robert Heinlein.  Some of Heinlein’s most famous stories were written under the name Anson MacDonald, but Heinlein used his own name when the books were reprinted.  Heinlein often alluded to having written romance stories during the Depression just to keep food on the table.  While I worked for Bantam Books during the seventies, I frequently pressured the famous publisher. Ian Ballantine, a personal friend of Heinlein, to reveal those names, but Ian always refused with a smile.  I still don’t know what name he used for his love stories, but I can tell you four other pseudonyms Heinlein used to publish fiction:  Lyle Monroe, John Riverside, Caleb Saunders, and Simon York.  I have no idea where the names came from.

Almost as prolific a writer as Stephen King, Harlan Ellison wrote under at least 10 different pen names.  Of all of his pseudonyms, the most famous was Cordwainer Bird.  (If you are interested, a cordwainer is one who makes shoes.  Contrary to popular thought, a cobbler does not make shoes, he repairs them.)  Ellison’s stories were frequently used by Hollywood, and when Ellison believed that various producers and directors had used his work and fornicated it skyward beyond all redemption, he branded it with the Cordwainer Bird moniker in the credits.  According to Stephen King, this was Ellison’s way of giving Hollywood the bird.  Ellison agreed. 

Note.  I will not say that Harlan Ellison wrote great science fiction, because he once said, “Call me a ‘science-fiction’ writer and I'll come to your house and nail your pet's head to the table.”  Yes, I know he died last year, but with Ellison, you just never know.  I will say that you need to read The Beast that Shouted Love at the Heart of the World.  Holy Shit!  You’ll never drive a car the same way again.

No American author has had as much impact on the genre of mystery writing as Ellery Queen.  Author, editor, magazine publisher—Queen’s books have been endlessly reprinted and turned into countless radio plays, television shows and movies.  Obviously, Ellery Queen is a pen name or I wouldn’t have included him, but Ellery absolutely wins the prize for the most confusing chain of pseudonyms.

First off, Ellery Queen is both the author and the main character in most of his books.  The son of a New York police inspector, the Ellery Queen character is a writer of mystery novels, who helps his father solve crimes.  So, he is an author who solves mysteries as an author who writes mysteries.

To further confuse the matter, after Ellery became famous, he adopted his own pen name, Barnaby Ross, to write other mystery stories.  Eventually, after the identity of the real author became well known, those books were republished with Queen as the listed author.  Instead of retiring the name of Barnaby Ross, Queen licensed other authors to write under the fictitious name, but those authors were not allowed to use Ellery as a character in their books.

By the late 1940’s, a series of mysteries designed for children and published under the name Ellery Queen, Jr. hit the bookstores.  These stories were written by several different ghostwriters under contract to Ellery Queen, with each following a plot and a strict outline laid out by Queen.  To further complicate matters, at least one of the ghostwriters hired sub-ghostwriters to actually pen the works.  At this point, you are probably thinking that no one knows who actually wrote what, but wait—it gets worse!

Ellery Queen was actually the pen name of two cousins who formed a 42-year writing partnership:  Frederic Dannay and Manfred Bennington Lee.  I wish I could stop the story now, but those were actually the professional names of Daniel Nathan and Emanuel Benjamin Lepofsky.  If you are wondering why two pen names needed a pen name….I can’t help you.

So, let’s sum up:  Nathan and Lepofsky, writing under the “professional” names of Dannay and Lee, wrote books under the shared pen name of Ellery Queen (who was an author who occasionally wrote as Barnaby Ross, but not about himself, sometimes) and in the books, Ellery Queen wrote mystery stories in which he (Ellery Queen) solved murders.

And if you understood that last paragraph, how you did it is a mystery to me.