This has happened more than once. A book becomes a big seller because they thought someone else wrote it. It sometimes happens that, when the truth is learned, sales plummet. But not always.
The first time I know of this happening was when John Polidori wrote The Vampyre. This was the outcome of that fateful summer of 1816 in which Byron, Shelley, the future Mary Shelley, Polidori, and others challenged each other to write a better scary story than those in the book Fantasmagorie they were reading. Byron succeeded in writing a fragment, but Polidori actually wrote an entire story, published as The Vampyre. Everyone thought the famous poet Byron had written it, so it sold well and inspired more than one play. It did a huge amount to popularize the Vampire, and arguably started the idea of the Titled Vampire who passed as human, which resulted eventually in Bram Stoker’s Dracula at the end of the century. But if people hadn’t thought that Byron had written it, arguably none of this would have happened, and Bela Lugosi would only be a footnote in theater history. (Byron’s fragment was eventually published, often as an addendum to editions of Polidori’s book)
Similarly, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein[ was published anonymously, and, if anyone was thought responsible, it was Percy Shelley, who wrote the foreword. again, being thought to be the work of a famous poet, it sold better than expected, and inspired not only a play, but also a parody play (a la Young Frankenstein), called “Franken-stitch”. Had this not be the case, Boris Karloff might have been a footnote to cinema history, and probably as William Henry Pratt.
It happened with Samuel Butler’s Erewhon, his not really utopia nor quite a dystopia novel. When it first came out in 1872 it was published anonymously, but it somewhat resembled Edward Bulwer-Lytton’s novel The Coming Race from 1871, which was also published anonymously. both books had the same red cover. People thought Erewhon was a sequel to Race, and it sold better than any of Butler’s other books. Until it was revealed months later who the author really was. Sales reportedly dropped by 90 percent after that.
Finally, there’s Venus on the Half Shell, which was originally a wholly imaginary book supposedly written by Kilgore Trout, the science fiction author in several of Kurt Vonnegut’s novels. Philip Jose Farmer reportedly talked the reluctant Vonnegut into letting him use the title and write a novel of it. When it first came out, with “Kilgore Trout” as the listed author, a lot of people thought it was really by Vonnegut. I don’t honestly know if it sold better than expected. Vonnegut was reportedly pissed, and later editions acknowledged that Farmer was the real author.
Any other cases?
