# Authors with pseudonyms--any whose identity was never cracked?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authors-with-pseudonyms-any-whose-identity-was-never-cracked/663917
**Category:** Cafe Society
**Created:** [July 19, 2013, 7:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authors-with-pseudonyms-any-whose-identity-was-never-cracked/663917 "2013-07-19T07:43:00Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Hilarity\_N.Suze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hilarity_N.Suze)
#### Post date: [July 19, 2013, 7:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authors-with-pseudonyms-any-whose-identity-was-never-cracked/663917/1 "2013-07-19T07:43:00Z")
Tons of authors use pseudonyms for various reasons, but mostly, it’s not a big secret. Evan Hunter/Ed McBain (was that ever even a secret?) etc. Sometimes they only use a pseudonym (Trevanian) but I guess if you did it right nobody would know.
But has any author ever used a pseudonym and nobody ever figured out who the person really was? Even after they died?
Just wondering. “Anonymous” got outed, so did JK Rowling, people seem to work extra hard on it when it’s a mystery.
(I mentioned in [this thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=684717%C3%AE) a question about ways you could set up a corporation that could never be traced to you, and it seems like that might work. But I guess all bets are off if you have to involve a law firm…someone will slip.)
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### Author:  [@Celyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Celyn)
#### Post date: [July 19, 2013, 8:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authors-with-pseudonyms-any-whose-identity-was-never-cracked/663917/2 "2013-07-19T08:20:33Z")
> [@Hilarity\_N.Suze](#):
>
> …
>
> But has any author ever used a pseudonym and nobody ever figured out who the person really was? Even after they died?..
Perhaps I’m being stupid and need more morning coffee, but how would we KNOW if any author succeeded in not letting anyone know? 😕
Coffee is a good plan anyway. Thanks for inadvertently making me think of it. 🙂
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### Author:  [@Celyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Celyn)
#### Post date: [July 19, 2013, 8:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authors-with-pseudonyms-any-whose-identity-was-never-cracked/663917/3 "2013-07-19T08:22:00Z")
Oh, and it was a very bad show from that law firm. I wonder how many clients are now considering moving their business elsewhere.
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### Author:  [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)
#### Post date: [July 19, 2013, 8:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authors-with-pseudonyms-any-whose-identity-was-never-cracked/663917/4 "2013-07-19T08:26:35Z")
[B. Traven.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B_traven)
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### Author:  [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)
#### Post date: [July 19, 2013, 8:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authors-with-pseudonyms-any-whose-identity-was-never-cracked/663917/5 "2013-07-19T08:38:18Z")
I am sure there are lots of obscure authors who no-one remembers and whose works were so little read that no-one cared enough to crack their pseudonym. B. Traven, however, was quite well known in his day, and a major, classic Hollywood picture was based on one of his books. Nevertheless, despite there being several theories about his identity, no-one is sure of it to this day.
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### Author:  [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)
#### Post date: [July 19, 2013, 1:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authors-with-pseudonyms-any-whose-identity-was-never-cracked/663917/6 "2013-07-19T13:15:45Z")
Rowling was outed? Don’t be silly. A book that had gotten good reviews and sold only 1500 copies. (I am a coauthor of a highly technical book that has sold just over twice that.) An anonymous Twitter note from an account that has subsequently disappeared. And an immediate admission from a Rowling agent, instead of the automatic denial one might have expected.
I do pity the publisher. They were obviously not expecting this. They have now ordered a new printing, but it will take a couple weeks to print, bind, and get into the bookstores, by which time everyone who wants will have bought the e-book.
Incidentally, the book was reviewed yesterday by Michiko Kakutani in the NY Times and she obviously loved it. Which is interesting since she panned the previous one, describing it as Peyton Place meets Little Whinging. She also loved the Harry Potter books.
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### Author:  [@jtur88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jtur88)
#### Post date: [July 19, 2013, 1:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authors-with-pseudonyms-any-whose-identity-was-never-cracked/663917/7 "2013-07-19T13:24:31Z")
James Church
> **[James Church](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Church)**
>
> James Church is the pseudonym of an American author of six detective novels featuring a North Korean policeman, "Inspector O".
> Church is identified on the back cover of his novels as "a former Western intelligence officer with decades of experience in Asia". He grew up in the San Fernando Valley in the United States, and was over sixty years old in 2009. His name and identity are known in the community of North Korea watchers.
> His "Inspector O" novels have been well-received, being noted by A...
As for B. Traven, it is widely presumed that he was German actor Otto Feige, but no proof of this has yet surfaced.
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### Author:  [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)
#### Post date: [July 19, 2013, 1:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authors-with-pseudonyms-any-whose-identity-was-never-cracked/663917/8 "2013-07-19T13:36:01Z")
> [@Hari\_Seldon](#):
>
> Incidentally, the book was reviewed yesterday by Michiko Kakutani in the NY Times and she obviously loved it. Which is interesting since she panned the previous one, describing it as Peyton Place meets Little Whinging. She also loved the Harry Potter books.
I don’t think it’s obvious that Kakutani would have given a positive review to The Cuckoo’s Calling. When the author was known only as Robert Galbraith, it got really good reviews.
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### Author:  [@KneadToKnow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KneadToKnow)
#### Post date: [July 19, 2013, 1:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authors-with-pseudonyms-any-whose-identity-was-never-cracked/663917/9 "2013-07-19T13:55:12Z")
> [@Hari\_Seldon](#):
>
> I do pity the publisher. They were obviously not expecting this. They have now ordered a new printing, but it will take a couple weeks to print, bind, and get into the bookstores, by which time everyone who wants will have bought the e-book.
How does people buying the ebook make the publisher sad?
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### Author:  [@Isilder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Isilder)
#### Post date: [July 19, 2013, 2:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authors-with-pseudonyms-any-whose-identity-was-never-cracked/663917/10 "2013-07-19T14:00:00Z")
Mathew , Mark , Luke, and John., among others.
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### Author:  [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)
#### Post date: [July 19, 2013, 2:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authors-with-pseudonyms-any-whose-identity-was-never-cracked/663917/11 "2013-07-19T14:22:29Z")
> [@Hari\_Seldon](#):
>
> Rowling was outed? Don’t be silly. A book that had gotten good reviews and sold only 1500 copies.
I don’t know how much stock you can put in that “sold only 1500 copies” figure; it’s been discussed in the [Cafe Society thread about the book](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=696584).
There have been, and still are, people who claim that Shakespeare’s plays were actually written by someone else. I don’t know that any of them have a strong enough claim that this one counts as “unsolved.”
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### Author:  [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)
#### Post date: [July 19, 2013, 2:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authors-with-pseudonyms-any-whose-identity-was-never-cracked/663917/12 "2013-07-19T14:31:40Z")
For Shakespeare, the case for another author was dropped due to lack of evidence.
It is highly unusual for a pseudonym used for a well known book to remain secret for long. Even Trevanian told his friends.
One exception may be erotica. The author of [**My Secret Life**](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Secret_Life_(erotica))" has not been definitely determined.
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### Author:  [@Colophon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colophon)
#### Post date: [July 19, 2013, 2:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authors-with-pseudonyms-any-whose-identity-was-never-cracked/663917/13 "2013-07-19T14:42:12Z")
> [@Hari\_Seldon](#):
>
> Rowling was outed? Don’t be silly. A book that had gotten good reviews and sold only 1500 copies. (I am a coauthor of a highly technical book that has sold just over twice that.) An anonymous Twitter note from an account that has subsequently disappeared. And an immediate admission from a Rowling agent, instead of the automatic denial one might have expected.
Not an “anonymous Twitter note” at all. The tweet was sent from an account in the person’s real name, Judith Callegari, who is a friend of someone who works for the law firm.
Nothing sinister or planned about it, just people not being able to keep a big juicy secret that they picked up from work.
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### Author:  [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)
#### Post date: [July 19, 2013, 4:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authors-with-pseudonyms-any-whose-identity-was-never-cracked/663917/14 "2013-07-19T16:01:06Z")
Tons of individual books have authors whose true identities are not known, or at least not positive. Thousands of cheap paperbacks were ground out from the 40s on. If you want to go back further, the same problem applies to hundreds, maybe thousands, of pulp stories. Most of the less respectable ones were written under pseudonyms or house names. A lot of progress has been made in matching titles to real names, but that hasn’t been done for all. Even higher-class erotica like The Olympia Press has a few authors whose identities aren’t certain. A woman using the pseudonym of Ataullah Mardaan wrote _Kama Houri_ and _Deva-Desi_, now rare collectibles. Publisher Maurice Girodias swore she was a real person, but no trace of her has ever surfaced. Most people think that one of his regulars wrote the book. If she is real, her name went to the grave with them.
There are some tricky identity problems even where the author is known. Take the case of Lewis Padgett. That’s known to be one of the joint pseudonyms that sf writers Henry Kuttner and C. L. Moore used after they married. Except that we also know that they didn’t always work on the same story that got sent out as a Padgett. For the paperback reprint of _Robots Have No Tails_, Moore wrote an introduction stating flatly that she never wrote a word of any of those stories. What about the rest of their “joint” work? Some are known, most aren’t.
Salvatore Lambino legally changed his name to Evan Hunter in 1952. He revealed he was Ed McBain as early as 1958. But he was also Hunt Collins, Curt Cannon, Richard Marsten, Ezra Hannon, and John Abbott. And nobody knows if he wrote any books as [Dean Hudson](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ed_McBain), which is a great example of the point I made above:
> [@](#):
>
> As well, Hunter has long been rumoured to have written an unknown number of pornographic novels for William Hamling’s publishing houses as “Dean Hudson”. Though Hunter consistently denied writing any books as Hudson right up to his death, apparently his agent Scott Meredith sold books to Hamling’s company as Hunter’s work, receiving payments for these books in cash. However, Hunter—if he did write the novels—never dealt with the publisher directly, and no records were kept by Meredith or Hamling of these cash transactions (presumably to avoid paying taxes). As well, Meredith may have forwarded novels to Hamling by any number of authors, claiming these novels were by Hunter simply in order to make a sale. Because of all these factors, it is impossible to do more than speculate as to which specific Hudson books may be Hunter’s work.[2] Ninety-three novels were published under the Hudson name between 1961 and 1969, and even the most avid proponents of the Hunter-as-Hudson theory do not believe Hunter is responsible for all 93.
That footnote goes to an [Earl Kemp article](http://efanzines.com/EK/eI24/index.htm#jungle) that discusses the controversy and the denial. It’s great reading. Click over there now.
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### Author:  [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)
#### Post date: [July 19, 2013, 4:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authors-with-pseudonyms-any-whose-identity-was-never-cracked/663917/15 "2013-07-19T16:05:56Z")
Who WAS Franklin W. Dixon?
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### Author:  [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)
#### Post date: [July 19, 2013, 4:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authors-with-pseudonyms-any-whose-identity-was-never-cracked/663917/16 "2013-07-19T16:52:34Z")
> [@ralph124c](#):
>
> Who WAS Franklin W. Dixon?
We know that Leslie MacFarlane wrote the first and 19 others.
[The Hardy Boys Wiki](http://hardyboys.wikia.com/wiki/Franklin_W._Dixon) (yes, really) has the most complete list.
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### Author:  [@KarlGauss](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KarlGauss)
#### Post date: [July 19, 2013, 9:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authors-with-pseudonyms-any-whose-identity-was-never-cracked/663917/17 "2013-07-19T21:40:27Z")
Were the identities of the authors of the various pamphlets, letters, etc., from peri-revolution America 1770’s and 1780’s), ever all determined (i.e. the ones that often took a Latin _nom-de-plume_)? Not the authors of the Federalist Papers, but along those lines.
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### Author:  [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)
#### Post date: [July 19, 2013, 10:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authors-with-pseudonyms-any-whose-identity-was-never-cracked/663917/18 "2013-07-19T22:31:04Z")
In the late 1950s, an author who used the pen name Betty Martin wrote two best-selling books, “Miracle at Carville” and “No One Must Ever Know”. These were autobiographical and told the story of her diagnosis with Hansen’s disease (AKA leprosy) and its eventual cure and her life after leaving the Louisiana facility where she, and later her husband, lived for many years.
He died in the 1990s and she just died a few years ago, in her 90s. AFAIK, her real name was never revealed even though at least one book was written about Carville after her death.
In time, the Leprosarium was closed and the facility was used as a minimum security prison by the state of Louisiana. It was destroyed in Hurricane Katrina.
(and after a Google search)
It was revealed.
[http://miracleatcarville.blogspot.com/](http://miracleatcarville.blogspot.com/)
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### Author:  [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)
#### Post date: [July 19, 2013, 10:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authors-with-pseudonyms-any-whose-identity-was-never-cracked/663917/19 "2013-07-19T22:39:15Z")
Moved to Cafe Society.
Colibri
General Questions Moderator
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### Author:  [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)
#### Post date: [July 20, 2013, 12:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authors-with-pseudonyms-any-whose-identity-was-never-cracked/663917/20 "2013-07-20T00:34:48Z")
> [@jtur88](#):
>
> As for B. Traven, it is widely presumed that he was German actor Otto Feige, but no proof of this has yet surfaced.
Look at the Wiki page I linked to. That he was Feige is only one, and by no means the obviously best supported, of several extant theories.
[Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authors-with-pseudonyms-any-whose-identity-was-never-cracked/663917.md?page=2)