Nom de plume : a (secret) history of pseudonyms / Carmela Ciuraru.

Author/creator Ciuraru, Carmela
Format Book
Edition1st Harper Perennial ed.
Publication InfoNew York : Harper Perennial, [2012], ©2011.
Descriptionxxviii, 343, 18 pages ; 21 cm
Subjects
Anonyms and pseudonyms--History.

Contents Anne, Charlotte, and Emily Brontë and Currer, Acton, and Ellis Bell (1816-1855) -- George Sand and Aurore Dupin (1804-1876) -- George Eliot and Marian Evans (1819-1880) -- Lewis Carroll and Charles Dodgson (1832-1898) -- Mark Twain and Samuel Clemens (1835-1910) -- O. Henry and William Sydney Porter (1862-1910) -- Fernando Pessoa and his heteronyms (1888-1935) -- George Orwell and Eric Blair (1903-1950) -- Isak Dinesen and Karen Blixen (1885-1962) -- Sylvia Plath and Victoria Lucas (1932-1963) -- Henry Green and Henry Yorke (1905-1973) -- Romain Gary and Émile Ajar (1914-1980) -- James Tiptree, Jr. and Alice Sheldon (1915-1987) -- Georges Simenon and Christian Brulls, et al. (1903-1989) -- Patricia Highsmith and Claire Morgan (1921-1995) -- Pauline Reage and Dominique Aury (1907-1998).
Abstract "Exploring fascinating stories of more than a dozen authorial imposters across several centuries and cultures, Carmela Ciuraru plumbs the creative process and the darker, often crippling aspects of fame...Highly accessible and engaging, these provocative stories reveal the complex motives of writers who harbored secret identities -- sometimes playfully, sometimes with terrible anquish and tragic consequences. Part detective story, part exposé, part literary history, Nom de Plume is an absorbing psychological meditation on identity and creativity" -- p. [4] of cover.
General note"A hardcover edition of this book was published in 2011 by Harper Collins Publishers" -- t.p. verso.
Bibliography noteIncludes bibliographical references (p. [337]-343).
ISBN9780061735271 (pbk.)
ISBN0061735272 (pbk.)