Saturday, June 30, 2012

Just Jennifer


Nom de Plume by Carmela Ciuraru (Harper Perennial)

Would a rose by any other name still smell as sweet if it were called say, Skunk Cabbage? Essayist and anthology editor Carmela Ciuraru explores the mystique and mythology surrounding pen names and why authors choose to use them.  Working chronologically, Ciuraru begins with the Bronte sisters who used male pseudonyms simply because at the beginning of the nineteenth century, women did not publish novels.  Aurore Dupin and Marian Evans (Georges Sand and Eliot) used men’s names for similar reasons, among them in order to gain easier acceptance into literary circles.  While many names, both real and assumed, will be familiar to readers (Twain, O.Henry and Lewis Carroll) some lesser known, Fernando Pessoa and Henry Green will inspire readers to try some new authors.  Ciuraru her history stops in the early twentieth century with Sylvia Plath and Patricia Highsmith; in an interview in an appendix, she explains her decision not to include more modern authors such as Stephen King or Anne Rice, noting their pseudonyms are more transparent and are branding device more than anything (an interesting comment in light of her chapter on the Brontes).  Fans of literary minutia will find much to enjoy here, though it may not be for the casual reader.
 

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