By the Book: Women Authors and their Pseudonyms

To mark the 25th anniversary of The Women’s Prize for Fiction, a campaign called “Reclaim Her Name” was run to give “female writers the credit they deserve”. In line with this, 25 special editions of novels were reprinted using the real names of 26 women writers who used male pseudonyms - including the likes of George Eliot, Vernon Lee, and George Sand. We discuss the idea behind this initiative, the notion of writers’ pseudonyms, and whether these names need to be “reclaimed” at all. And in Footnotes, we discuss this year’s Women’s Prize shortlist and winners.