The Secret Identities of 15 Famous Authors (And Why They Used Them)
- - - The Secret Identities of 15 Famous Authors (And Why They Used Them)
Edward Clark July 2, 2025 at 8:06 AM
Writers are known for their words, but sometimes they'd rather not sign their real name to them. Many famous authors took on secret identities to publish their work, and some pseudonyms even became more famous than the writers behind them. Here are 15 notable examples of authors who went undercover—and the surprising reasons why.
Mary Ann Evans – George Eliot
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Mary Ann Evans knew her novels wouldn't be taken seriously if they carried a woman's name. So she borrowed one—George Eliot—and published some of the most acclaimed works in English literature, such as Adam Bede and Middlemarch. The name stuck even after people figured it out.
Stephen King – Richard Bachman
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Stephen King worried his fame might be inflating his success. So, he invented a new author—Richard Bachman—to find out if his work could stand alone. The plan involved no marketing and a fake author bio. Books like The Running Man sold well, but sales jumped once fans discovered Bachman's true identity.
Louisa May Alcott – A.M. Barnard
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Before she became famous for Little Women, Louisa May Alcott was publishing thrillers and melodramas under a more ambiguous name. "A.M. Barnard" gave her room to explore darker plots and complex characters. It wasn't until decades later that historians connected the dots using letters Alcott had signed with the pseudonym.
Charlotte, Emily & Anne Brontë – Currer, Ellis & Acton Bell
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The Brontë sisters—Charlotte, Emily, and Anne—chose gender-neutral pen names to avoid the cultural bias against women writers. Their publisher had no idea they were sisters, or even women. When the truth came out, it didn't hurt their reputation, but for a time, their real names were such a mystery.
Eric Blair – George Orwell
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Eric Blair feared his family would disapprove of his raw memoir Down and Out in Paris and London. That's when he created George Orwell, and the pseudonym stuck through Animal Farm and 1984, even as he became one of the most quoted political writers of the 20th century.
C.S. Lewis – Clive Hamilton
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C.S. Lewis gained fame for The Chronicles of Narnia, but he also published poetry under the name Clive Hamilton—a mix of his real first name and his mother's maiden name. At the time, he was teaching at Oxford and wanted to keep his literary side quiet.
Charles Dickens – Boz
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Charles Dickens tested the waters under the nickname "Boz." It started as a family joke—his brother Augustus had the nickname "Moses," which turned into "Boses," then got shortened to Boz. By the time readers figured it out, he had already become one of the most popular writers in England.
J.K. Rowling – Robert Galbraith
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After Harry Potter, J.K. Rowling released The Cuckoo's Calling under the name Robert Galbraith to see how the book would be received without her fame attached. The novel drew modest attention until a linguistic analysis uncovered the truth. Rowling admitted and explained that the alias gave her "freedom to publish without hype."
Isaac Newton – Jehovah Sanctus Unus
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We know Newton for the laws of motion and gravity, but behind the scenes, he was deep into alchemy and biblical prophecy. Publishing these ideas under his real name could have damaged his reputation, so he used cryptic pseudonyms like "Jehovah Sanctus Unus" to publish controversial ideas.
Benjamin Franklin – Silence Dogood
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At age 16, Benjamin Franklin fooled his older brother by slipping satirical essays under the door of their printing press, signed "Silence Dogood." Readers loved her—some even proposed marriage. Franklin later revealed himself and adopted many other aliases, including "Richard Saunders" of Poor Richard's Almanack fame.
Theodor Geisel – Dr. Seuss
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Theodor Seuss Geisel adopted the "Dr. Seuss" moniker after getting kicked off his college humor magazine for misbehavior. To keep contributing under the radar, he used his middle name. "Dr." was added later to fulfill his dad's hope he'd become a physician.
Fernando Pessoa – Álvaro de Campos & Others
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Instead of one pseudonym, Portuguese poet Fernando Pessoa created dozens with their own biography, worldview, and writing style. He called them "heteronyms." One was a naval engineer, another a melancholic woman, and others debated philosophy with each other in print. For Pessoa, it was an entire literary multiverse.
Alisa Rosenbaum – Ayn Rand
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When Alisa Zinov'yevna Rosenbaum left Soviet Russia, she wanted a fresh start and a name that wouldn't put her family at risk. She chose Ayn Rand and never looked back. Her new name helped her build an identity tied to individualism, capitalism, and her controversial philosophy, Objectivism.
Solomon Rabinovich – Sholem Aleichem
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The voice behind Fiddler on the Roof, Solomon Rabinovich, was a teacher-turned-writer worried about family backlash. Writing in Yiddish, instead of the more respected Hebrew, could raise eyebrows, especially among relatives. So he adopted the pseudonym "Sholem Aleichem," which translates to "peace be upon you."
Samuel Clemens – Mark Twain
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Samuel Clemens sailed the Mississippi before he became a literary icon. His pen name came straight from riverboat slang—"Mark Twain" meant two fathoms deep, or safe water. The phrase stuck with him through novels like Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn.
Source: AOL Lifestyle
