Samuel Langhorn Clemmens would have been a dead giveaway. But here we are back to pseudonyms and here are examples of writers who have used pseudonyms or pen names when they wrote their work.

American humorist Samuel Clemmens is more known as Mark Twain. His literary creations like Tom Sawyer, Huckleberry Finn, and the time traveller in A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court have been part of a number of literary experience through out the world – crossing mediums from the written word to moving images.

The former Colonial Police Eric Blair also known as George Orwell wrote a number of essays and stories that have also become a part of our present culture. From his novel 1984 and his fable Animal Farm, Orwell or Blair has been able to transform political commentary into an interesting form of storytelling. So much so that blurns/phrases from his books have entered or crossed over and become a roundabout way of saying things: Big Brother is Watching and All Animals are Equal but some Animals are more equal than others are part of our culture today.

Mathemathician Charles Dodgson wrote fantasy novels under the pen name Lewis Carroll. His most famous work was of course Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass. It is believed that his pen name or nome de plum was a word play on his name: (i) Lewis from Ludovicus the Latin name for his middle name Lutwidge and (ii) Carroll from the Latin word Carolus or Charles.

And then there is Ellery Queen a pseudonym of Daniel Nathan and Manford Lepofsky. Both respectively using the alias Frederic Dannay and Manfred Bennington. Ellery Queen was the name of their character. And both four novels about the detective Drury Lane again using the pseudonym Barnaby Ross. Both received a number of recognition and awards under their various pseudonyms.

Originally posted on October 8, 2010 @ 1:55 am