Universe of books: works that were published anonymously or under male pseudonyms to hide their female identity

“I would venture to say that Anon (Anonymous), who wrote so many poems without signing them, was often a woman”, wrote Virginia Woolf in his book a room of your own (1929). And it is that, as history shows, writing, publishing and being a woman at the same time was not seen with good eyes in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. About the International Women’s Daywe gathered some titles that were published without the original name of their authors.

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The first time it was published pride and prejudice (1813) It was without the signature of its author, Jane Austen, who preferred to publish all his books omitting his name. Although years ago, in 1811, he set a precedent with his first novel, Sense and Sensibilityon which he wrote in capital letters: “A novel in three volumes written by a lady”.

Anonymity was also adopted in the original publication of Frankensteinin 1818. We all know that its author was the great Mary Shelley, but this data was hidden for five years. In 1823, a second edition would reveal it, but confuse literary critics who insisted that the book was percy shelleyher husband.

This situation forced Shelley to clarify it in a definitive edition in 1831. “While it is true that I do not owe my husband the idea of ​​any specific episode, not even the feelings of any character, if it were not for his insistence, I would never have taken the form in which it was presented to the public.”, wrote in its first pages.

While, Scenes of Clerical Life It was published in 1858 under the signature of george eliot, a name that would respond to a male author. This work won the admiration of important authors, such as Charles Dickens, who highlighted her for her veracity and humorous delicacy. The same thing happened with the book. adam bedepublished a year later with the same authorship.

However, as soon as it became known that the texts were from the writer Mary Ann Evans, the critics began to rain like stones. The author was a renowned figure in Victorian intellectual circles, so she preferred that her real name not be linked with the fiction of “female novelists.” Her pseudonym of george eliot It is preserved in all his works, until today.

But this “tradition” not only responds to ancient times. Joanne Kathleen Rowling, better known as JK Rowling, signed his first detective novel, The song of the cuckoo (2013)What Robert Galbraith; a decision imposed by her editors, who refused to publish it under her female name, something that years later the author summed up as “pure sexism.”

Other writers who signed on as men included Amantine Dupin (pseudonym: George Sand), the sisters Charlotte, Emily, and Anne Brontë (pseudonyms: Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell, respectively), among others. (I)