Nom de Plume: A (Secret) History of Pseudonyms

In an era in which privacy now seems a quaint relic, and self-effacement is a thing of the past, Carmela Ciuraru reminds us this was not always the case. Exploring the fascinating stories of more than a dozen authorial impostors across several centuries and cultures, Ciuraru plumbs the creative process and the darker, often crippling aspects of fame. Biographies have chronicled the lives of pseudonymous authors such as Mark Twain, Isak Dinesen, and George Eliot, but never before have the stories behind many noms de plume been collected into a single volume. These are narratives of secrecy, obsession, modesty, scandal, defiance, and shame: Only through the protective guise of Lewis Carroll could a shy, half-deaf Victorian mathematician at Oxford feel free to let his imagination run wild. Bored by her aristocratic milieu, a cigar-smoking, cross-dressing baroness rejected the rules of propriety by having sexual liaisons with men and women alike, publishing novels and plays under the name George Sand. Grounded by research yet highly accessible and engaging, these provocative, astonishing stories reveal the complex motives of writers who harbored secret identities – sometimes playfully, sometimes with terrible anguish and tragic consequences. Part detective story, part expose, part literary history, and an absorbing psychological meditation on identity and creativity. Time Line, Bibliography. 343p.