I've just read that J.K. Rowling has written a crime novel under the false name of Robert Galbraith.. Is this going to be a new thing where writers hide behind a name for the other gender or has it been around for a while?
I've just read that J.K. Rowling has written a crime novel under the false name of Robert Galbraith.. Is this going to be a new thing where writers hide behind a name for the other gender or has it been around for a while?
I never knew that J.K Rowling wrote a crime novel - that sounds really interesting!
Writers have been hiding their true gender for hundreds of years - J.K Rowling herself has done this, as she was advised to have a name that wasn't obliquely feminine. George Eliot also did this - I think her real name was Mary something, but can't quite remember. It was thought that only books by men would be received seriously and with respect, so many female writers chose to write under a male pseudonym. However, earlier than that, it was the other way round (and this really surprised me - I bought a dictionary of early female writers and was shocked when I read this in the introduction!); for a time, emerging female writers were so popular that men chose to write under female pseudonyms!