What do John Hurston, Andre Norton, and George Eliot Have in Common with Mary Shelley, Author of Frankenstein?
Celebration National Women’s History Month
In Celebration of National Women’s History Month, I thought it would be appropriate to share some stories (and books) of women authors who were successful with their writing, but because of the time and society they lived in (including today), they wrote under male pseudonyms. I may get a little preachy, but some things need to be said.
John Hurston, Andre Norton, George Eliot, and George Sand were but a few of the women in days gone by who were trapped writing as men because they knew no one would take them seriously as women.
In Women Who Write Are Dangerous, author Stefan Bollmann writes in the Introduction,
“Toward the end of the eighteenth century, when, in the spirit of the Enlightenment, the German writer on human relations Baron von Knigge offered the good citizens of his day a code of practical advice for living, he thought it proper to forbid ladies to take up writing as a profession, and, as he put it, roam at will in the realm of learning.”
It’s not shocking that women were not thought to have brains in the eighteenth century. They were relegated to home and family because it was assumed that was all a woman could manage.
This environment of skepticism and prejudice perpetuated the need for female authors to adopt male pseudonyms or publish anonymously to have their work judged on its merits rather than the author’s gender.
Bollmann goes on to say,
“…Knigge offered women little encouragement. How dare they, he protested, suddenly expect to have a voice and pass judgment on matters that since time immemorial had been the exclusive preserve of men?”
Indeed. How dare we have a brain. A mind. A voice.
But we did, and we do. Even today, many women face discrimination and backlash about our writing. Women who write cozy mysteries – because that’s what they want to write, are accused of writing them because “that’s all they can write.” As if cozy mysteries are beneath writing. Truth is, it’s not as easy as it sounds.
As noted in the Wakefield Libraries post by Tessell97,
“This mostly stems from historic prejudice against women writing books. In a letter to Charlotte Bronte, poet Robert Southey declared ‘Literature cannot be the business of a woman’s life and ought not to be.’ ((Southey, 1837. In: Gordon, 1995. p.65)”
No matter how talented or educated, women writers faced major hurdles to getting published. The world of literature was a male territory and should not feel the tread of soft-clad feet, the rustle of skirts, or the pen of slim, smooth hands, so everyone thought.
The women in this post defied the times and wrote under male pseudonyms because they knew their work would suffer if they penned it under their own name. They were forced to write as ‘men’ to be taken seriously.
To me, these courageous women paved the way for all of us who write today. I imagine them saying, “The devil be damned! I’m going to write, and I am determined to be read.” Their best solution was using the workaround of adopting a male name to put on their work. Whether they wrote sci-fi, romance, or the kind of novel sure to raise eyebrows in certain drawing rooms, these women were not to be silenced by the foolishness of the day saying women should not write!
Is it better that way? It had to be for them. Today, women, in general, are not afraid to put their name on their work regardless of the topic. They may choose a pseudonym, but it’s generally female to match their own gender. Yes, some prefer to have their work represented by a male pseudonym, but they don’t do it because society will look at them aghast. They aren’t afraid to be writers of the ‘other’ gender, and yes, ladies, we need to acknowledge that we are still ‘the other’ gender. They merely prefer the male name on their work. It’s a choice, not a requirement.
Adopting male pseudonyms allowed the women noted below to bypass gender bias, gain access to publishing opportunities, and have their work judged on merit rather than gender.
Let’s celebrate Women’s History Month with these women, remembering that they chose to be heard, and this was the only way for them.
• Mary Shelley, Frankenstein, and more
In the book Romantic Outlaws – The Extraordinary Lives of Mary Wollstonecraft & Mary Shelley by Charlotte Gordon, we learn that one of our classic horror stories, Frankenstein, written by Mary Shelley, was first published anonymously in 1818.
Shelley and her father, the writer William Godwin, knew the book would be ridiculed if the world discovered that a woman had written it.
The novel included a preface by the poet Percy Shelley, Mary’s husband. It was dedicated to Mary’s father, William Godwin. The preface led many critics of the day to assume Percy was the author. Today, however, we know from Shelley’s manuscripts that Percy was more of an editor than a contributor.
I do find it sad that even today, some literary critics debate the extent of Percy Shelley’s influence on the novel despite clear evidence of Mary’s authorship.
While Mary Shelley did not assume a male pseudonym, this story demonstrates how even a groundbreaking work like Frankenstein needed to be attributed to a man rather than acknowledging a woman’s literary genius.
• Supernatural writer Violet Paget, aka Vernon Lee Notable Works, wanted recognition for her writing. She wanted to be seen and heard. Her supernatural fiction, such as her collection of ghost stories, Hauntings, was not the norm of the day for a woman writer. Her pseudonym helped shield her from societal scrutiny.
Who among us knew that lurid short stories like Behind a Mask and Pauline’s Passion and Punishment were written by none other than Louisa May Alcott, calling herself A.M. Barnard? This is not the wholesome image we have of Alcott from her most famous work, Little Women. It proves that women are not one-dimensional beings.
• George Sand, a.k.a. Amantine Lucile Aurore Dupin was “recognized as one of the most notable writers of the European Romantic Era.” She preferred to dress like a man (scandalous!) which you needed a license for circa 1824, and criticized the institution of marriage. Her pseudonym was created to gain credibility and allow her to write as she pleased. Notable Works: Indiana, Consuelo, La Mare au Diable.
Among some of the things she was known for was leaving her husband to go to Paris and live among the bohemian art scene there. How interesting is this tidbit?
• No list of women writers using make pseudonyms would be complete without mentioning George Eliot, a.k.a. Mary Ann Evans. You may not recognize her first novel, Scenes of Clerical Life written in 1857, but you surely know the novel, Middlemarch. She wrote under a male name to be seen and heard. Are you seeing a pattern here?
• I did not know until I researched this post (with help from JaneA Kelley) that Emily Brontë was also Ellis Bell. The novel we all love from Brontë, Wuthering Heights, was published in 1847 under the pseudonym Ellis Bell. Brontë died in 1848, a year after Wuthering Heights was published, and her own name didn’t appear on the novel until 1850. The other Bronte sisters also wrote under male pseudonyms: Anne Brontë wrote under the name Acton Bell, and Charlotte Brontë wrote as Currer Bell.
Lesbian and black authors using male pseudonyms
• Marguerite Antonia Radclyffe-Hall, a.k.a. Radclyffe Hall, wrote the groundbreaking lesbian novel The Well of Loneliness, published in 1928. Also known for wearing men’s clothes and behaving in a much more masculine way than other women of her generation, she often called herself John rather than Marguerite. Another writer who knew to be seen, you needed to use a male pseudonym.
• Andre Norton, a.k.a. Alice Mary Norton, is one of the best-known American science fiction and fantasy authors. I did not know this. She is a new writer to me. According to the Joco Library, Norton enjoyed a 70-year writing career, during which time she published more than 125 novels, and in 1934, she legally changed her name to Andre Alice Norton. It doesn’t seem that long ago, a mere 91 years, but Norton’s publishing team advised her to select a male-sounding name to appeal to a male-dominated audience, as they said the vast majority of science fiction and fantasy readers at the time were men. Her best-known works include Catseye, The Time Traders, and Witch World.
• Alice Bradley Sheldon, a.k.a. James Tiptree Jr., was inducted into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame in 2012. Her prolific and award-winning writing career stands her in good stead. She has won numerous Hugo, Locus, and Nebula awards, as well as the World Fantasy Award. Why use a male pseudonym? Because, as she once told Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine – “a male name seemed like a good camouflage, I had a feeling that a man will slip by less observed…”
• Katharine Penelope Burdekin, a.k.a. Murray Constantine, was an early 20th-century British author of speculative fiction that concerned social and spiritual issues. Her Wikipedia page says that she allegedly used this pseudonym for her best-known novel, Swastika Night (1937), as a way to protect her family from the risk of repercussions and attacks because of her novel’s political nature and strong criticism of fascism. The Wiki also states that the only reason we know that Constantine was Burdekin’s pseudonym is because a student researching utopian and dystopian literature in the mid-1980s made the connection.
• Let’s bring things right up to the present day. The novel City of Dark Magic was written by two women, Christina Lynch and Meg Howrey, who chose a male pseudonym, Magnus Flyte, when they published it in 2012. The thought was a male name would be more acceptable to both genders – meaning to men. Women wouldn’t care.
• Our last author, Black author Zora Neale Hurston, who used the alias John Hurston, published her book Their Eyes Were Watching God in 1937. It is a haunting novel about a Southern Black woman in the 1930s on a journey for independence and a chance to be heard. Hurston’s novels went unrecognized by the literary world for decades. It was after her death that author Alice Walker wrote an article (1975), “In Search of Zora Neale Hurston” (later retitled “Looking for Zora”), that appeared in Ms. magazine, and revived interest in Hurston’s work.
A chance to be heard. That’s the pattern here. That’s the underlying reason these women chose to use men’s names on the cover of their books. Ridicule, criticism, a belief that a man’s name held more power than a woman’s name led all of these women to deny their gender in order to be seen and heard. I suspect, though I did not find instances of it in my searching, that women also used merely initials to disguise their gender. I do know some women today do so. But the little information I found on this pointed to more men using their first initial and last name, not women.
In one case, here, a commentator wrote, “I am a female author, and I use my initials for all of my published work. But it is not to hide my gender. My desire was to have readers more interested in the content…than who wrote it.”
Women are braver today. We’re not afraid to be bold and outspoken when we want to be. We know there may be repercussions, but we welcome them. Our voices cannot and will not be silenced, not by a worry that our work will lack credibility, nor by a fear that our gender, our race, or our sexual orientation will be any reason to be less than we are – women writers with voices that will be heard.
Sources:
Medium: Unveiling the Non de Plume by K. Joseph.
6 Female Authors Who Published Under Male Pseudonyms
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