Pen name is a name an author uses instead of his or her real name. Pen names are also called pseudonyms. Thousands of authors use pen names. Most are popular novelists who adopt one or more pen names to avoid flooding the market with many works published under the same name. Writers sometimes use pen names to conceal their identity for legal reasons, to protect their privacy, or because they are dealing with highly personal or controversial material.
During the 1800’s, many women writers adopted masculine pen names because of sexual discrimination. For example, the British novelist Mary Ann Evans concealed her femininity with the pen name George Eliot.
Pen names first became common in the 1700’s with the emergence of newspapers, magazines, and other periodicals. Authors adopted pen names because they feared political persecution for their writings. Perhaps the most famous early pen name was Voltaire, which was adopted in 1718 by the French writer Francois Marie Arouet. The English writer Charles Dodgson wrote under the pen name of Lewis Carroll. The American author Samuel Clemens used the pen name Mark Twain. The children’s writer Theodor Seuss Geisel used the pen name Dr. Seuss. The American mystery writers Frederic Dannay and Manfred B. Lee wrote as Ellery Queen. John Creasey, another mystery writer, used 27 pen names.
