# Popular because they thought the Author was Someone Else **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [March 12, 2015, 12:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/popular-because-they-thought-the-author-was-someone-else/714822 "2015-03-12T12:42:51Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2015, 6:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/popular-because-they-thought-the-author-was-someone-else/714822/21 "2015-03-12T18:15:57Z")
I just thought of one. When Cordwainer Smith published his first SF story in 1950, everyone assumed - correctly - that Cordwainer Smith was a pseudonym. But the story (“Scanners Live in Vain”) was so well written that a lot of people figured it must be an established author using a new pseudonym to conceal his identity. People were speculating that the story had been written by Frederick Pohl or Robert Heinlein or Isaac Asimov. The reality was that Cordwainer Smith was really Paul Linebarger, a scholar who had begun writing fiction as a hobby. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2015, 6:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/popular-because-they-thought-the-author-was-someone-else/714822/22 "2015-03-12T18:21:07Z")
> [@BurnMeUp](#): > > For my contribution I wonder if people’s misattribution of certain songs lead to popularity: > > Horse with no name (Neil Young vs America) > Always Wear Sunscreen (Vonnegut vs Lerhman) I’ll admit when I first heard KT Tunstall’s “Black Horse and the Cherry Tree” I thought it was a new song by Joan Osborne. ---
**Author:** ![Trancephalic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/trancephalic/32/380_2.png) [@Trancephalic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trancephalic)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2015, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/popular-because-they-thought-the-author-was-someone-else/714822/23 "2015-03-12T20:17:20Z")
I’m sure A Nightmare Before Christmas got a few more asses into theaters 'cause of Tim Burton’s name. From what I’ve read he had crucial but very minor involvement, mostly, IIRC, naming Jack Skellington. ---
**Author:** ![BurnMeUp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/91b2a8/32.png) [@BurnMeUp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BurnMeUp)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2015, 8:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/popular-because-they-thought-the-author-was-someone-else/714822/24 "2015-03-12T20:21:45Z")
> [@Trancephalic](#): > > I’m sure A Nightmare Before Christmas got a few more asses into theaters 'cause of Tim Burton’s name. From what I’ve read he had crucial but very minor involvement, mostly, IIRC, naming Jack Skellington. Actually the entire thing was based on a poem he had written and illustrated. He was very involved. However subsequent releases of other stop motion films (James and the Giant Peach and Coralline) would reference “from the makers of Nightmare Before Christmas” hopefully pulling in the Burton crowd. ---
**Author:** ![bup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/6bbea6/32.png) [@bup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bup)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2015, 9:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/popular-because-they-thought-the-author-was-someone-else/714822/25 "2015-03-12T21:15:25Z")
_**[Letters from a Nut](http://smile.amazon.com/Letters-Nut-Ted-L-Nancy/dp/0380973545/ref=smi_www_rco2_go_smi_2054712102?ie=UTF8&%252AVersion%252A=1&%252Aentries%252A=0)**_, when it first came out, had a publicity barrage that heavily implied the author was Jerry Seinfeld. ---
**Author:** ![rowrrbazzle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rowrrbazzle/32/414_2.png) [@rowrrbazzle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rowrrbazzle)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2015, 4:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/popular-because-they-thought-the-author-was-someone-else/714822/26 "2015-03-13T04:49:04Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > 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. Fascinating. There were other early parodies, too. [Eichler, "Frankenstein and the Rocky Horror Picture Show"](http://knarf.english.upenn.edu/Articles/eichler.html) > [@](#): > > The novel was soon accepted for the stage, and Mary herself was able to attend a production of Presumption, or the Fate of Frankenstein. Between 1823 and 1826 London, Paris and New York saw theatrical versions, often parodies of the theme under the titles Frankenstitch (with the main character a monster that had been patched together with needle and thread from nine different corpses), Frank-n-Steam, and Frank-n-Stein or the Modern Promise to Pay (a logical forerunner of Mel Brooks’ Young Frankenstein). ---
**Author:** ![thelurkinghorror](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7c8e57/32.png) [@thelurkinghorror](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thelurkinghorror)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2015, 5:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/popular-because-they-thought-the-author-was-someone-else/714822/27 "2015-03-13T05:34:50Z")
Patty Smyth and Patti Smith. Thankfully they keep the vowels consistent. Maybe, Tom Wolfe and Thomas Wolfe. They weren’t contemporaries, though. I don’t think anyone confuses director Steve McQueen (12 Years a Slave) and the actor, but I dunno. This is pretty much the MO of [the Asylum](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Asylum) (films). “Transmorphers,” “I Am Omega,” “Almighty Thor.” Also why a bunch of shitty bootleg Nintendo knockoffs came out, so grandmothers could proudly tell their grandkids they bought them that game about the ethnic electrician who jumps on lizards. > [@BurnMeUp](#): > > Horse with no name (Neil Young vs America) > Always Wear Sunscreen (Vonnegut vs Lerhman) :eek: I hope nobody decided they didn’t like the former in each of those pairs because the latter songs are so stupid! [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/popular-because-they-thought-the-author-was-someone-else/714822.md?page=1)