Eight Women Writers Who Adopted Male Pseudonyms

Throughout the course of literary history, numerous female authors have opted for male pen names to circumvent gender discrimination and secure publishing chances. George Sand, whose birth name was Amantine Lucile Aurore Dupin de Francueil in 1804, published 70 novels while challenging 19th-century French conventions by donning men's attire and smoking publicly. In 1819, George Eliot, originally named Mary Ann Evans in Nuneaton, England, adopted her pseudonym to create realist literature after condemning trivial works by women in her essay "Silly Novels by Lady Novelists." The Brontë sisters—Charlotte, Emily, and Anne—released their novels as Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell in 1847, including "Jane Eyre," "Wuthering Heights," and "Agnes Grey." In 1977, James Tiptree Jr., born Alice Bradley Sheldon, surprised the science fiction world when her true identity was uncovered; critic Robert Silverberg had previously remarked that her writing was "ineluctably masculine." Born Alice Mary Norton in Cleveland in 1912, Andre Norton changed her name legally and became the first woman honored in the Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame in 1997. Additionally, Vernon Lee, born Violet Paget, contributed to supernatural fiction and aesthetic theory, co-developing "psychological aesthetics" with Kit Anstruther-Thomson and introducing the German term Einfühlung (empathy) to English readers.