PEN-NAMES.

Otago Witness, Issue 3831, 16 August 1927, Page 74

PEN-NAMES.

A career of literature is at the worst a harmless one (say’s a writer in an exchange). Many of its followers, however, appear to regard it as in the nature of a crime—at least, they’ are at the greatest pains to conceal their identity. Most readers, for instance, have heard of Lewis Carrollthe names of Charles Lutwidge Dodgson is less W’idelv known. Yet these" two are one and the same. Lewis Carroll was a writer of children’s stoi'ies, Dodgson an Oxford don and a mathematical lecturer. When he first began to write for the Train, a magazine edited by Edmund Yates, he suggested ‘ Dares ” as a suitable pen-name, “ Dares ” being the first syllable of Daresbury, the Cheshire town where lie was born. But the proposal did not commend itself to Yates.

George Eliot, the novelist, was, as is well known, Mary Ann Evans in real life. She chose the name “ Eliot ” be-

cause it was a “ fine, short, full-sounding name that matched her style and story.” At a later period Mrs Desmond Humphrey’s decided to be known to the novelreading public as “ Rita.” She adopted a “ short name—easily remembered—as in case of success or the reverse she had no desire to be known by’ her own name whenever she appeared in society.” A prominent novelist of the ’nineties was Mrs Pearl Mary Teresa Craigie, the brilliant author of “ Some Emotions and a Moral.” As a .writer she preferred to be known as “John Oliver Hobbes.” “John’’ was the name of her father and her son, while Oliver was fixed upon “ because of the warring Cromwell, and Hobbes because it was homely.” Frances Elizabeth Mac Fall, after writing one novel under her own name, subsequently’ called herself “ Sarah Grand ” in the belief that such a name would lie “ simple, short, and emphatic—not easily forgotten.” Mr Arnold Bennett has contributed many articles to periodicals, over the signature of “ Jacob Tonson,” and even to-day he is apt to suppress his first Christian name, which happens to be Enoch.

Henry’ Seton Merriman, the writer of many’ popular romances, was in private life Hugh Stowell Scott. Concerning Merriman’s first book, “ The Sowers,” Mr W. L. Courtney tells an interesting story in his " Secrets of Our National Literature.”

“ His father,” writes Mr Courtney, “ possessed a lucrative business in the city, and Scott for some time rowed in the family’ boat. But his hatred of business life got the mastery of him, and he ceased to attend at daily’ practice. His father was wont at times to reproach him with frivolling in literature instead of dabbling, like his brother, profitably’ in stocks and shares. One day’ he said': ‘ Now, if you could write a book like this,’ holding up ‘The Sowers,’ ‘you might call yourself an author.’ Eveh then the youth kept silence. But he went on working. And at last the father gloried in the son’s fame.”