An Inkwell of Pen Names

By Stephen Smith

An Inkwell of Pen Names tells the stories of 100 authors’ pen names in a hundred short chapters. Many other authors who used pen names are discussed incidentally. Features of the compendium include pen names beginning with every letter of the alphabet, authors from twenty-five countries, the recipients of the Nobel Prize for literature who used pseudonyms, and a balanced selection of men and women authors.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Nov 20, 2006
• ISBN: 9781462841974

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Copyright © 1999, 2006 by Stephen Smith.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

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Rev. date: 09/16/2021

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Contents

The challenge arises as to how the authors whose names appear at the beginning of each of the hundred chapters of An Inkwell of Pen Names should be listed in a table of contents. Many authors are better known by their pen names than their real names. But placing each author’s pen name next to his or her real name would not suffice because some authors have used many pseudonyms. Then, there are all the changes which have been made to the names of women authors who have married. Some authors, both men and women, have also changed the spelling of their given names or reversed the order of their first and middle names.

Therefore, for the sake of clarity and uniformity, the table of contents lists authors alphabetically by the most easily recognizable form of their real names. That is also how the stories of their pen names are arranged in the book. It should also be noted that embedded in many of the hundred chapters is information about many other authors not listed in the Table of Contents who have used pen names.

Dedication

To my parents, who always encouraged me in the right way.

Acknowledgments

A warm and hearty thank you to the following people for the assistance and encouragement they have given me: Bruce Felton, Professor Vincent G. Quinn, Nicole Titus, and my father, Daniel Smith.

Introduction

. . . whatever Adam called every living creature, that would be its name.

Genesis (2.19)

One of man’s powers and traits is to give a name to every person, place, and thing. But not every individual is happy with the name they are given and sometimes they change it. Authors have a special way of changing their names. Assumed name, literary name, nom de plume, pen name, poetic name, pseudonym, and other words and phrases refer to the fact that many authors submit their writing for publication using a new name. Authors’ reasons for changing their names are sometimes fascinating and the kinds of alterations they make are more varied than the synonyms for pen name.

Many authors choose pen names because they want to distance themselves from their real names. Pseudonyms have been adopted to shield authors from a bad press or publicity. In the nineteenth century some women cloaked themselves in men’s names because they feared it would be considered improper for women to have their writing published. Authors are sometimes asked by their publishers to adopt house names (another synonym for pen names) so that the market doesn’t appear to be overwhelmed by one popular writer.

There are authors who use many noms de plume. (Stendhal, whose real name was Marie-Henri Beyle, was one of the most pseudonymous, using over a hundred and seventy pen names.) Some women authors take on men’s names. (Charlotte Brontë used the name Ellis Bell.) And some men adopt women’s names. (A front page story in The New York Times of November 6, 1997 revealed that Mrs. Helen Cathcart, the renowned biographer of British royalty, was really the late Harold Albert. He used a woman’s name because he was writing primarily for a female audience.) Some authors have used only initials or even a single letter as a pen name. (Helen Hunt Jackson called herself H. H. and Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch was known as Q.) There are even cases of two authors sharing a pen name. (Frederic Dannay and Manfred B. Lee wrote under the joint literary name of Ellery Queen.)

Occasionally, a lot of ingenuity has been demonstrated by authors in divising pen names. Charlotte Tucker used the initials A. L. O. E. (A Lady of England). Mary Abigail Dodge wrote under the name Gail Hamilton (which combines part of her middle name and Hamilton, Massachusetts, her birthplace. Robert H. Newell used Orpheus C. Kerr as his pseudonym (a play on the words office seeker). Louise de la Ramé chose Ouida (pronounced weeda) as her nom de plume because that was the way she said her own name as a child. Sydney Dobell wrote under the name Sydney Yendys (spelling his first name backwards). In the spirit of our own time the author of a recently published book about cybercafes used the cognomen Cyberkath.

What follows are the stories of some famous (and not so famous) authors’ pen names. These are not the stories of the authors’ lives or works, but you will certainly get an inkling of their lives and works from what you’re about to read.

At the top of each essay the author’s pen name precedes his or her given name. Following that you will find the interesting and sometimes entertaining story of the author’s nib name (or names). Perhaps you will be inspired to read some of these authors’ biographies and works. You can anticipate many delightful and interesting surprises as you dip into An Inkwell of Pen Names.

Carolyn Keene

(Harriet Stratemeyer Adams) 1894-1982

. . . what are names but air?

Choose thou whatever suits the line.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Names

In the first three decades of the twentieth century American author-businessman, Edward Stratemeyer (1862-1930), along with a staff of writers, turned out a number of popular series for young readers. Stratemeyer and his staff wrote these novels assembly-line style under a host of pseudonyms: Manager Henry Abbott, Harrison Adams, Capt. Ralph Bonehill, Jim Bowie, Franklin Calkins, Allen Chapman, Louis Charles, James R. Cooper, Jim Daly, Spencer Davenport, Julie Edwards, Albert Lee Ford, Robert W. Hamilton, Hal Harkaway, Harvey Hicks, Dr. Willard Mackenzie, Ned St. Myer, Chester Steele, E. Ward Strayer (a variation of Edward Stratemeyer), Arthur M. Winfield, Edna Winfield (Edna was a daughter’s name), and Ned Woods.

Stratemeyer’s daughter, Harriet, who inherited the successful series empire from her father, carried on the business and did a great deal of writing. Harriet Stratemeyer Adams, which she became after her marriage to Russell V. Adams in 1915, wrote about two hundred novels, writing into her mid-eighties.

Adams used seven pen names during her career. She wrote fifty-six Nancy Drew mysteries between 1930 and 1978. All of these novels were written under the name Carolyn Keene. The first book in the series was Secret of the Old Clock (1930); The Mystery of Crocodile Island (1978) was the last. Adams also used Carolyn Keene as a pen name for the less well-known thirty-two books of the Dana Girls series, published between 1934 and 1978. All of Adams’ books were cooked up following a kind of recipe. Characters were either good or evil, but the crimes committed by evildoers weren’t too serious. No matter how tight a mystery was Nancy Drew always unraveled it. (The Nancy Drew stories were made into a television series in the 1970s.)

Adams wrote the Hardy Boys series (twenty novels written from 1934 to 1973) using Franklin W. Dixon as her pseudonym. She probably thought that a man’s name on the cover would be more appealing to young male readers. The first of these books was The Mark on the Door (1934); The Mystery at Devil’s Paw (1973) was the last.

Twenty-one science-related Tom Swift, Jr. books were written by Adams, under the name Victor Appleton II, between the years 1935 and 1972. The fifteen books in the Bobbsey Twins series were written under the name Laura Lee Hope between the years 1940 and 1967. The pseudonym Adams chose for the series was an appropriate one for books designed to appeal to young women.

The other pen names used by Harriet Adams were May Hollis Barton, Ann Sheldon, and Helen Louise Thorndyke.

One mystery remains in the well-documented life of Harriet Adams. It is uncertain whether she was born in 1892, 1893 or 1894. It is a problem that the keen mind of Nancy Drew would surely be able to solve.

Oliver Optic

(William Taylor Adams) 1822-1897

In choosing your signature, bear in mind that nothing goes down now-a-days, but alliteration.

Fanny Fern, Borrowed Light

Adventure stories for youngsters didn’t begin with the Hardy Boys. A one-time schoolteacher and grammar school principal in Massachusetts named William Adams was writing similar stories for boys (which were also enjoyed by girls) more than a hundred years ago. He turned these books out like hotcakes and they sold just as fast—over a million copies all tolled.

Adams globetrotted to Europe, Asia, and Africa about twenty times when that much travelling abroad was almost unheard of. His experiences in other countries provided material for many of the one hundred and twenty-six books and close to one thousand stories he wrote.

He began writing in his spare time, but after working twenty years in the public schools he gave up that career to devote more time to his work as an author.

None of Adams’ works were published under his real name. As soon as he began writing he saw fit to make Oliver Optic his pen name. The name was his adaptation of Dr. Optic, a character in a play that was in performance in Boston at that time.

His first novel, Hatchie, the Guardian Slave, was published in 1853. He earned $37.50 for the effort. Neither of the two novels he wrote for adults was successful. His later works, written for adolescents, were very successful. In 1854 he wrote The Boat Club, the first of his many books for boys. Adams wrote an entire series of books for young people called the Woodville Series between the years 1861 and 1867; the Army and Navy Series was written between the years 1865 and 1894, and he produced other similar collections of novels. From 1867 to 1875 Adams edited Oliver Optic’s Magazine for Boys and Girls.

During Adams’ career he also wrote stories under the name Irving Brown and the Old Stager. Adams’ books were designed to instill good values in youth. How, then, can one explain the fact that his travel sketches were published under the name Clingham Hunter, M.D.? Perhaps Oliver Optic could see only so far.

C. L. I. O.

(Joseph Addison) 1672-1719

Isaac Bickerstaff

(Richard Steele) 1672-1729

Methinks their very names shine still and bright;

Apart—like glow-worms on a summer’s night.

William Wordsworth, Ecclesiastical Sonnets

Like Gilbert and Sullivan, Addison and Steele are often mentioned in the same breath. Joseph Addison and Richard Steele were classmates at Oxford, friends, and collaborators on several very popular eighteenth century London newspapers, including The Tatler and The Spectator.

In 1707 Steele became editor of the London Gazette, an official government organ. The writing he did for the Gazette prompted him to publish a newspaper of his own. Two years later, Steele began publishing The Tatler under the name Isaac Bickerstaff. The same pen name had been used by Jonathan Swift (1667-1745) q. v., and by Allan Ramsay (1686-1758), a Scottish poet who also wrote under the pseudonym Gawain Douglas. Addison authored forty-two issues of The Tatler, but Steele wrote many more of them.

Soon after The Tatler fell silent both men began publishing The Spectator, a daily paper which was an improved version of its predecessor. The Spectator was seen off and on again from 1711 to 1714 and was extremely popular with the public. Addison wrote slightly more than half the issues. Almost all the issues Addison wrote were signed with one of the letters in the name of the inspirational muse of history in Greek mythology, Clio. Thus, one issue would appear over the initial C., another over the initial L., and so on. (We can only surmise how Addison might feel if he knew that Clio is the name given to the awards presented by the advertising industry for the best TV commercials.)

Addison and Steele were interested in improving their readers intellectually and morally. Unlike many essayists before and after, they actually succeeded in influencing the behavior and thought of English men and women in a positive way.

From 1713 to 1715 the two men published The Guardian, a newspaper for which Steele did most of the writing. Steele became Sir Richard Steele when he was knighted by King George I in 1715.

Addison also wrote plays, and so did Steele. Addison’s Cato (1713), a tragedy, was very successful; Steele’s The Conscious Lovers (1722), a comedy; was equally popular. In 1716 Addison had The Drummer produced anonymously. It is just as well, for the play was a failure.

Ironically, Addison and Steele had a falling out in 1719. They had opposing views on a bill to limit the number of peers. Steele published his opinions in a pamphlet and Addison responded with a pamphlet of his own. A few months later, before their friendship was restored, Addison died. Steele lived another ten years, but he was in debt and a broken man.

Gabriela Mistral

(Lucila Godoy de Alcayaga) 1889-1957

No sound is breathed so potent to coerce

And to conciliate, as their names who dare

For that sweet mother-land