5 authors you didn’t know wrote under pseudonyms
When you’re browsing through a bookstore or library, certain authors seem to jump out. Whether they’re ultra-famous or simply a personal favourite, we’re all guilty of being a little biased towards certain writers. But what if your favourite author has been writing other books under an alias this whole time? Here are just a few of them.
1. J.K. Rowling
Not only did she shorten her name from Joanne to the gender-ambiguous “J.K.” to attract young boys to read the Harry Potter series (as her publishers feared they wouldn’t want to read the books if they knew a woman had written them), but Rowling crafted another pseudonym. For her crime novels The Cuckoo’s Calling, The Silkworm and Career of Evil, she adopted the pen name “Robert Galbraith” to avoid the hype and expectation that would have accompanied the Rowling name.
2. Dean Koontz
The prolific thriller author, who has been known to write up to eight books a year, has confessed he’s used at least ten different pen names, including Aaron Wolfe, Brian Coffey, David Axton, Deanna Dwyer and John Hill. The aliases were suggested by his publishers, who warned him against writing different genres all under the same name.
3. The Brontë sisters
Like many female authors at the time, Charlotte, Emily and Anne Brontë opted for male aliases Currer, Ellis and Acton Bell, respectively. According to Charlotte, “we did not like to declare ourselves women, because – without at that time suspecting that our mode of writing and thinking was not what is called ‘feminine’ – we had a vague impression that authoresses are liable to be looked on with prejudice.”
4. Stephen King
Undoubtedly one of the most well-known authors in the world, it’s not surprising that King would want to see if the success of his 1974 novel Carrie was down to his writing, or simply the hype surrounding its film adaptation. Also, back in the ‘70s and ‘80s, authors were told not to publish more than one book a year, so as to prevent saturating the market. That’s how Richard Bachman came about – a nom de plume used by King for seven novels, almost eight (1985’s Misery) had he not been exposed.
5. Agatha Christie
Despite struggling to have the manuscript for her first novel, the Mysterious Affair at Styles, accepted by publishers, Christie stuck with her real name. However, after deciding to branch out into playwriting and the romance genre, she decided to separate her works with a new name – Mary Westmacott. She only managed to write four novels as Mary before her eagle-eyed fans caught on.