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AlcottWeb: Official LMA: Scrap-Baggers: Pen Names of Louisa May Alcott |
| AlcottWeb: Home | This article comes from Volume 3, Number 2 of the
Scrap-Bagger's newsletter. It's by Maryann Belason. I'm very grateful to the Scrap-Baggers
for allowing me to include some of their articles on my pages. Pen Names of Louisa May Alcott A pen name is a false or fictuous name, a pseudonym that is assumed by an author. Pen names are used to conceal identity from the publisher and the public. Some famous pen names include: Samuel Clemens as Mark Twain, Harriet Lothrop as Margaret Sydney, William Sydney Porter as O. Henry, Charlotte Bronte as Currer Bell, Charles Dodgson as Lewis Carroll and Frances Hodgson Burnett as The Second. Louisa May Alcott also used pen names. She published some stories under the following names: A.M. Barnard, Aunt Weedy, Flora Fairfield, Oranthy Bluggage and Minerva Moody. Why did Louisa use such an assortment of names? Some of the reasons may include the wish to diguise her gender, after all, women were not supposed to write romance stories, and to mask her embarrassment over family friends such as Emerson and Thoreau knowing what type of stories she was creating. Many of Louisa's "pot-boilers" were published under the name of A.M. Barnard. These include "The Abbot's Ghost," "The Marble Woman", and "Behind a Mask". Why Louisa used the pen name of A.M. Barnard is still a mystery, but one explanation is that the initials A.M. may have come from her mother's name, Abigail May, and the Barnard may hve come from a friend of the family and a famous educator, Henry Barnard. In Little Women, Jo (Louisa) seeks secrecy by telling no one of her sensational stories. She tells the publisher that the stories were written by a friend who wishes that they be printed anonymously. Jo feels ashamed of what her father would think of her writing such "rubbish". It was logical for Louisa May Alcott to use pen names because it was improper for a lady of her time and upbringing to write the things she wrote. A pen name provided secrecy and allowed Louisa to continue to write the stories that earned the money for her family. by Maryann Belason, courtesy of The Scrap-Baggers |
| This site is unaffiliated with Orchard House or any other official LMA organization. It's just a fan site. The official site is http://www.louisamayalcott.org . |
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