- 2 hours ago
Some of literature’s biggest names hid behind pen names to unleash very different stories, styles, and genres. Join us as we explore surprising books and series that famous authors published under aliases, from gothic poetry and scandalous fiction to detective novels, children’s favorites, and mathematical musings. Which reveal shocked you most? Let us know in the comments below!
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00This is Curabelle.
00:05Oh, how perfect.
00:08Welcome to Ms. Mojo.
00:10And today, we're counting down our picks for the most surprising and iconic times
00:14when it was discovered that famous authors used pen names to publish books for one reason or another.
00:19His what?
00:20His non-deplume.
00:22It's a pen name?
00:23Name he uses?
00:24Never mind.
00:30I started writing as J.D. Robb back in like 94, 95 because I have a fast pace and I
00:37write a lot of books
00:38and New York was saying, you need a hobby and, you know, it was all that inventory.
00:44They couldn't figure out how to schedule me.
00:46In 2007, Roberts was one of two writers declared as Time Magazine's 100 Most Influential People.
00:52Roberts' work has been adapted for the screen many, many times, including a deal with Lifetime
00:57for multiple films, as she reached 250 published works in 2025.
01:03Yet while she is a queen of romance novels, there's another side to her writing, police procedurals.
01:09There really is absolutely no difference.
01:12I start with page one, chapter one, and I go all the way through on a first draft.
01:17I approach the book exactly the same way.
01:21And really, there isn't any difference in the mindset either.
01:24The mindset is, tell the best story I possibly can at this time.
01:28Using the pseudonym J.D. Robb, Roberts is the author behind the In Death series, which has over 60 books
01:35so far.
01:36Yet that's not her only pen name, as Roberts is published as Jill March, and in the UK, Sarah Hardesty.
01:42In fact, Nora Roberts is sort of a pen name, too, as she was born Eleanor Robertson.
01:47When we were talking about it, she says, Nora, there's Pepsi, there's Diet Pepsi, and there's Caffeine-Free Pepsi.
01:53And the light bulb went off, and I said, oh, it's marketing.
01:58And I could possibly be two popular brands.
02:01Number 9.
02:02Many Mathematical Works.
02:04Lewis Carroll.
02:05One of the most celebrated Victorian authors in history, Carroll published Alice's Adventures in Wonderland in 1865,
02:12and its sequel, Through the Looking Glass, in 1871, forever influencing the children's book industry.
02:18Now blow the candle out, my dear, and make your wish come true.
02:26America!
02:31Away from novels, Carroll had other interests, such as poetry.
02:35However, there was a far different aspect to the fantasy writer, mathematics.
02:40Carroll's very playful about these things, and, you know, mathematics is sort of playful that way as well, of, you
02:46know, just generating new ideas.
02:47With Lewis Carroll being his pen name, he released several maths books under his real name, Charles Dodgson.
02:53One of his works was 1887's The Game of Logic, which used his playful style and a board game to
02:59explain mathematical logic.
03:01Some researchers believe his devotion to math led Carroll to satirize popular algebra theories within Alice's Adventures in Wonderland,
03:08such as exaggerating Alice's changing size.
03:11What happened to your clothes?
03:13I outgrew them.
03:15I've been growing an awful lot lately.
03:18I tower over everyone in Umbridge.
03:21They laugh at me.
03:22Number 8.
03:23Confession Series, Christopher Wood.
03:25Well, what can I offer you?
03:27Sheep's eyes?
03:28Dates?
03:29Vodka martini?
03:30Information.
03:32A prolific writer, Wood is best known for scripting and co-writing two James Bond screenplays,
03:381977's The Spy Who Loved Me and 1979's Moonraker, alongside writing their novelizations.
03:44Within the book realm, as well as publishing under his real name, the English writer used several pseudonyms.
03:50Most famously, Wood wrote the Confession Series under two names, Timothy Lee and Rosie Dixon, which were more comedic than
03:57some of Wood's other work.
03:59Hello, Leek.
04:00I must say, I never thought I'd ever see you here.
04:03Oh, don't be so beastly, Tony.
04:04What's the matter?
04:06What's the matter?
04:06Lost your tongue?
04:09Sorry?
04:11Come on, where are your manners?
04:14Starting with 1971's Confessions of a Window Cleaner, the books didn't receive great reviews.
04:19However, they were popular enough to span a film franchise, which starred Robin Asquith portraying Lee on screen,
04:26finding himself in many explicit and farcical situations, as Wood wrote the raunchy screenplays.
04:32There's so little to do around here if you don't play bridge.
04:35But, but...
04:36Oh, come on, who knows? I might even book a course of lessons.
04:40I can see you mean business.
04:42Number 7.
04:43The Life Before Us
04:45In 1975, Émile Ajar burst onto the French literary scene with his second novel, The Life Before Us,
04:52winning a Prix Goncourt Award.
04:54L'éditeur Mercure de France jubile.
04:56Mais le tout Paris veut savoir qui se cache derrière Émile Ajar.
05:00Releasing four celebrated books altogether,
05:03it was believed that the Ajar identity belonged to Paul Pavlovich.
05:06However, that wasn't the case.
05:08In 1981, Pavlovich went public with the truth.
05:12Je sentais bien qu'il me manipulait, mais d'abord j'étais là pour être manipulé.
05:16He stated that the pen name belonged to the successful author Romain Garry,
05:20who wanted to experiment with his prose by getting his cousin's son, Pavlovich, to pretend to be Ajar.
05:27The Prix Goncourt is meant to only be given to an author once,
05:30yet with Garry's Ajar pseudonyms coming to light,
05:33he'd now technically won it twice,
05:35having first received it for 1956's The Roots of Heaven.
05:39Il a voulu se débarrasser de Romain Garry pour qu'on le lisse vraiment.
05:41Il se plaignait toujours qu'on le lisait jamais.
05:43Tout Romain Garry relève du doux.
05:45Il a mis tellement d'énergie à dire des mensonges qui lui plaisent,
05:48à inventer un personnage qui lui plaise.
05:50Il a décidé que le roman c'était plus important que l'existence.
05:53Number six, story of all, Anne Desclos.
05:56Très jeune fille comme ça.
05:58C'est fou ce que tu as changé depuis ton retour.
06:02Mais les Jartières, je trouve que tu as tort, ça abîme les jambes.
06:05C'est très pratique.
06:09In 1954, the erotic novel Story of O was published in France.
06:13It caused a scandal to erupt throughout the literary world,
06:16as its intense material sparked the country's government to fail
06:20in issuing obscenity charges against its publisher and author, Pauline Réage.
06:24However, the authorities were able to get a publicity ban for years.
06:28After 90 minutes of being on hold,
06:30they finally transferred me to the permit department
06:33only to say,
06:35Pas possible.
06:36Pas possible.
06:37Pas possible.
06:39Pas possible.
06:40Everything is pas possible.
06:42For decades, Réage was a mystery as no one knew who she was.
06:46Well, in 1994, Dominique Aury admitted to the New Yorker that she was Réage.
06:51However, while Réage was a pseudonym, so was Aury,
06:55as the creator was born as Anne Desclos.
06:57While the story of O's sequels,
06:59Retour à Roissy, were released under Réage's name,
07:02biographer Angie David speculated someone else had used the pen name.
07:06Well, thanks to me, I haven't quite forgotten what happened when I was young.
07:12Number 5.
07:14The works of J.T. Leroy, Laura Albert.
07:16Although your work is really catching on,
07:19some people think that you might not really exist.
07:21In other words, that J.T. Leroy might be a pen name or a hoax
07:24or some kind of extended performance piece.
07:28I mean, do you run into this a lot,
07:30that people think that this is just some kind of hoax?
07:33In 2000, Jeremiah Terminator Leroy, best known as J.T. Leroy,
07:38took the book World by Storm when his book Sarah was published.
07:41He then followed it up with 2001's The Heart is Deceitful Above All Things.
07:46That same year, the elusive author began making public appearances,
07:50always with his friend Emily Speedy Frazier.
07:52Why do you keep answering for him?
07:57He's a deaf mute.
08:01That's the way it feels because he hates talking about money,
08:06hates business talk, you know, it's like art, art, art, keep it pure.
08:11Following the release of Leroy's 2005 novel Herald's End,
08:14the truth was discovered.
08:16It turned out that Leroy was the pseudonym of Laura Albert,
08:19who got her friend Savannah Knup to play him publicly,
08:22while Albert pretended to be Frazier.
08:24I feel such a sense of shame
08:30because J.T. really asked people to go to bat for him
08:37and say that of course he's real.
08:39And now,
08:44they look stupid.
08:47This led to Albert being sued for fraud by Antidote Films,
08:50who'd option Sarah for an adaptation.
08:52After losing the case in 2007,
08:55Albert appealed, resulting in an out-of-court settlement.
08:58If you feel upset because I was 15 years older than J.T.,
09:03or that I'm a woman and not a boy,
09:06I'm okay with that.
09:08The book says clearly,
09:10on the jacket,
09:12fiction.
09:13The rest is extra.
09:16Number four, Nancy Drew series,
09:19Mildred Benson.
09:20Who are you?
09:22Hello, I'm Nancy Drew.
09:25It's nice to meet you.
09:26May I ask who you are?
09:27Carolyn Keene,
09:28the writer of the Nancy Drew series of children's books,
09:31appeared to be the most prolific author in history,
09:34creating dozens of books over decades.
09:36Yet Keene didn't exist.
09:38She was a pen name created by the Stratemeyer Syndicate,
09:41which employed ghostwriters to create under the Keene brand.
09:44The first to lend their talents was Mildred Benson,
09:47who wrote 23 of the books.
09:49She also ghostwrote for other Stratemeyer franchises and published under other pseudonyms,
09:54as well as her real name.
09:55But I did know that I was creating something that was an unusual book.
10:00I knew it was,
10:01I knew from the way I felt as I wrote that I was writing something that was,
10:07that would be popular.
10:09Another pen name used by the Stratemeyer Syndicate was Franklin W. Dixon,
10:13who was primarily a creator for the Hardy Boys series.
10:16One of the earliest Dixon writers was the father of legendary Canadian sportscaster Brian McFarlane,
10:22Leslie McFarlane.
10:23He would rewrite the plot sometimes and introduce characters like Aunt Gertrude,
10:28who became famous for the Hardy Boys series.
10:31But he used to say,
10:34don't even tell your people I'm involved in this.
10:38So I told all my friends and they were all reading them anyway.
10:41Number three,
10:43Over 70 Works,
10:44Fernando Pessoa.
10:45On November 30th,
10:471935,
10:48dozens of writers passed away.
10:50They came from different backgrounds,
10:52espoused divergent beliefs,
10:54and wrote in a variety of styles.
10:56Yet all of their work was stashed in a single trunk in an apartment in Lisbon, Portugal.
11:00Sometimes writers have used heteronyms,
11:03where they release work under the name of a character with a distinct writing style,
11:07and no one was perhaps as synonymous with the practice as Fernando Pessoa,
11:11who actually invented it.
11:12The prolific Portuguese poet created over 70 different heteronyms for poems and novels,
11:18as well as publishing content under his name too.
11:20Pessoa crafted a dreamy love letter as Maria Josi,
11:24a teenager with a spinal disorder who was infatuated with a metal worker.
11:27He scribbled detective stories as Horace James Faber
11:31and analyzed astrological charts as Rafael Bodaya.
11:35Pessoa's most famous author creations include Alberto Cayero,
11:39Ricardo Hayes,
11:40and Álvaro Giacampos,
11:41who all had distinctive biographies.
11:43For example,
11:44while Giacampos typically had an angrier style,
11:47Cayero was less educated,
11:49with a childlike view of the world.
11:51As such,
11:52each left a lasting impression.
11:53To paraphrase cultural critic Mark Deary,
11:56when Pessoa passed away,
11:58three of Portugal's greatest writers went with him.
12:00My soul is a hidden orchestra,
12:02the first entry reads.
12:03I do not know what instruments,
12:05what violins and harps,
12:07drums and tambores,
12:08sound and clash inside me.
12:10I know myself,
12:11only as a symphony.
12:14Number 2.
12:15The works of A.M. Barnard,
12:16Louisa May Alcott.
12:29As the author behind 1868's Little Women and his sequels,
12:34Louisa May Alcott is one of literature's most influential creators.
12:37Yet there were rumors that there was another side to the iconic writer.
12:41In the 1940s,
12:43Madeline B. Stern and Leona Rostenberg discovered the secret.
12:46Women in those days were not supposed to write thrilling stories.
12:51That was the purview of men.
12:53So Louisa and other women that may have done this
12:56would use either a male pseudonym
12:59or at least an androgynous one.
13:02The scholars found that in letters between Alcott and a publisher,
13:05they mentioned releasing her work under the name A.M. Barnard.
13:08Rather than a coming-of-age tale and societal commentary that Alcott was known for,
13:12Barnard's writing delved into thrillers,
13:14such as 1866's A Long Fatal Love Chase,
13:18which featured a relationship between a woman and a demon.
13:21During the 1970s,
13:23Stern and Rostenberg began republishing Barnard's work under Alcott's name,
13:27bringing the connection into public knowledge.
13:29There are so many untold stories.
13:31There are so many mysteries.
13:33There are so many things that are written under a pseudonym.
13:35There are so many stories that we don't know.
13:37And any time that you can discover and find one of them
13:41and add to the understanding of somebody,
13:44that's exciting.
13:54Before we continue,
13:56check out this single from Sound Mojo's album current,
13:59EDM Transformed.
14:00Check out the full track and album below.
14:16Number 1.
14:17Poems by Curer, Ellis, and Acton Bell,
14:20The Bronte Sisters.
14:21The plan would be to try to publish a volume of poetry first.
14:27And then,
14:29if that met with a modicum of success
14:31and something of a name was established,
14:33we could each risk a work of fiction.
14:35There is probably not a more influential writing sibling group,
14:38and unfortunately tragic due to their early demises,
14:41than the Bronte Sisters.
14:43Formed by Charlotte, Emily, and Anne,
14:45each released their famous books under male pen names.
14:48Charlotte had Curer Bell,
14:50who released 1847's Jane Eyre,
14:52Emily used Alice Bell for 1847's Wuthering Heights,
14:56and Anne utilized Acton Bell for 1847's Agnes Grey.
15:00Yet the trio's first use of their pseudonyms
15:02was for a joint poetry book in 1846,
15:05which wasn't a success at the time.
15:07We're at risk, we're unknown, despite the poems.
15:09Because of the poems.
15:11Do you copy so?
15:13You will persist.
15:17Oh yes.
15:18In 1850, following Emily and Anne's deaths
15:21and their two legendary books being combined and released,
15:24Charlotte admitted in the preface
15:25that the Bronte Sisters used the Bell names
15:27as pseudonyms to avoid prejudice against their gender.
15:30The whole of literary London,
15:32the whole of London,
15:34will fall over itself to spend a minute
15:36in the company of Currabel.
15:38If you were a published author
15:39and wanted to use a pen name,
15:41what would you choose and why?
15:42Let us know below.
15:48You
Comments