An Author by any other Name by Joy Margetts

 

'Colette'

In the strange nothingness between Christmas and New Year, I watched a lot of films. One of those was Colette (2018). It tells the story of Sidonie -Gabrielle Colette, the prolific French novelist of the early 20^th century. I admit I found some of the film made me both blush and cringe, and if you are of a delicate constitution when it comes to hedonism being played out on the screen in explicit detail, you have been warned. But it was worth watching for the way it unpacked Colette’s relationship with her first husband, Henri Gautier- Villars. How he ‘forced’ her to write her semi-autobiographical stories and how he ‘stole’ the credit for the four Claudine novels published between 1900 and 1903, with his own pen name ‘Willy’ as the author. Many years later, when she had successfully proved the books were her own work, she was quoted as saying that she would never have become a writer without Willy. He in turn claimed that the books would not have been nearly so successful if published under an unknown woman’s name. He was sadly probably right.

In the 18^th and 19^th centuries writing fiction was considered a most unladylike activity – frivolous and distracting from their ‘higher calling’, whatever that might have been. We probably all know that the Brontes, unusually well educated women for their time, published their novels under the ambiguous, but definitely more male sounding pseudonyms of Acton, Currer and Ellis Bell. In a later explanation, Charlotte explained why they had chosen to do so,

‘we had a vague impression that authoresses are liable to be looked on with prejudice’

Charlotte Bronte

I’d like to suggest it was probably more than a ‘vague impression’, and that Charlotte was being diplomatic! She had sent some of her early poems to the Poet Laureate, Robert Southey, in 1837, for comment, and received this response:

‘Literature cannot be the business of a woman’s life, and it ought not to be. The more she is engaged in her proper duties, the less leisure she will have for it even as an accomplishment and a recreation’.

We know of many other women forced to use a nom de plume to be taken seriously in the publishing world in times past. But what about now?

I don’t believe, thankfully, that there are the same prejudices around against women writers now. At least not in the genre I write in. But perhaps you might have come across them? I was glad to be able to use my real name on my books without a second thought.

I do know of writers however who have chosen to use pen names. Sometimes it is because there is already another author out there with the same name, sometimes it is because their own name is hard to pronounce or spell. Or it might be something a publisher or agent has advised - some authors names better suit some genres perhaps?

A dear author friend of mine had to choose to publish under another name for a quite different reason. She had based her story on infidelity within a marriage, that she only knew about because she was in a position of trust. Although names and details were of course changed, she did not want to chance that the people who inspired her book would be exposed. She chose to stay anonymous. Because of this she has been extremely limited in how she can market her own work. It has led her to question whether she ever should have published the book at all.

I want to write a novel based on my own family history, which is definitely epic. For the sake of accuracy and authenticity, that may require me to expose long hidden family secrets. I have wondered about this. I will change names of course, but will I also have to change my own name? Might I be wiser to use a pseudonym? But then, my family at least will still know it is me…

I wonder, have you chosen to use another name on your works? What was your reason for doing so? Have you ever felt pressurised to do so, or felt the victim of prejudice? And does it really matter anyway, as long as the credit and the royalties go to the right person?