The use of pseudonyms is a common practice in the literary world. Authors may choose to publish anonymously for many reasons, such as public backlash. In A Room of One’s Own, author Virginia Woolf wrote, “I would venture to guess that Anonymous, who wrote so many poems without signing them, was often a woman.” While a pseudonym can act as a shield in certain circumstances, this is not what Woolf was referring to in A Room of One’s Own. During and preceding Woolf’s time, women had limited access to education. They were expected to hold domestic positions such as maids and governesses, and not indulge in academic pursuits such as writing. The anonymous title for women refers to the attempt to avoid the discrimination female writers face in the literary world. In many cases, this results in the use of masculine or androgynous-sounding pseudonyms.
The Brontë sisters, Emily, Charlotte, and Anne published under the pseudonyms Ellis, Currer, and Acton Bell, respectively, producing the likes of Wuthering Heights, Jane Eyre, and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. Similarly, Mary Ann Evans, another prominent writer of the Victorian period, published under the pseudonym George Eliot. French writer Amantine-Lucile-Aurore Dupin of the Romantic period was held in high regard and surpassed notable authors such as Victor Hugo, author of The Hunchback of Notre Dame and Les Misérables in popularity in the 1830s and 1840s. Dupin wrote under the masculine pseudonym George Sand.
Grace Hartigan was a second-generation Abstract Expressionist who used the name George early on in her career. She noted in journal entries shared by the Syracuse University Press that the decision to use the pseudonym was both an homage to 19th-century female writers such as George Eliot and George Sand and was a practical decision as a man’s art held more value than a woman’s.
True crime author Ann Rule, author of the Ted Bundy biopic, The Stranger Beside Me, used the pseudonym Andy Stack for some of her work. Similarly, Katharine Burdekin, author of Swastika Night, used the pseudonym Murray Constantine which George Orwell’s later novel Nineteen Eighty-Four bore striking similarities to. Harper Lee, who wrote To Kill a Mockingbird, dropped her first name, Nelle, upon publication.
Gender-based discrimination in the arts remains present in our current century. On August 4, 2015, author Catherine Nichols shared an experience she had with the publishing industry in a piece shared by the news outlet Jezebel. She described how her work was received differently by the industry when she submitted manuscripts under a masculine pseudonym, as opposed to her own name.
Nichols sent out six initial queries under a masculine pseudonym and received five responses within 24 hours, three requests for the full manuscript, and two rejections that nevertheless, praised the project. Nichols compared these results to what she had garnered previously: “Under my own name, the same letter and pages sent 50 times had netted me a total of two manuscript requests.” For further context, Nichols did not expect to hear from publishers for at least a few weeks.
Under the masculine pseudonym, Nichols submitted the same amount of queries that had garnered her two requests under her own name. She received 17 manuscript requests this time. Nichols also described receiving an enthusiastic request from an agent who had firmly rejected the project under her own name and how the rejections under the masculine pseudonym were more polite. The work was now considered ‘“clever,” “well-constructed” and “exciting.”’ Nichols also noted: “No one mentioned his sentences being lyrical or whether his main characters were feisty.”
While masculine pseudonyms are not necessarily needed any longer for women to get their work published, it is clear that gender discrimination still plagues the industry.