Should Authors Be Allowed To Publish Under Pseudonyms?

Should authors be allowed to publish under pseudonyms?

August 21, 2022

Candide by Voltaire. George Orwell. The Federalist Papers, signed "Publius." Their Anti-Federalist counterparts, written under Brutus, Cato, Federal Farmer, and even Montezuma. The similarity of all of these, besides their seminal contributions to culture and society, is that these authors wrote under a pseudonym. Although this did not stop them from having influence due to their work, it did lend to their efforts the flavor of the Everyman. As Voltaire once described, "Author is a generic name which can, like the name of all other professions, signify good or bad, worthy of respect or ridicule, useful and agreeable, or trash for the wastepaper-basket." I would further suggest that an author's given name does not have to matter either. 

Some sources tell me that some publishing houses right now are not allowing authors to publish non-fiction with them under a pen name. My suspicion is that this is respectability politics run amok. Reasons of freedom of expression should be enough to guarantee authors the right to publish under a pen name. Pen names should be allowed out of First Amendment reasons and decent respect for the life of the author, but as in many cases, the recalcitrance of many corporations toward issues of the rights of human beings will force us to continue the argument. In the end, a ban on pen names is not a practical one, but is a blatant attempt to control and limit the artist. 

A pen name represents not only freedom of expression, and freedom to take risks and experiment with style and form; but also, it represents an ongoing tradition, of the pseudonym as the creation of a character that represents the artist and author in the story of real life and politics. A pen name does not only add excitement to writing, it can also be inspiring. It is one of the oldest traditions of a republic that The Pen can belong to anyone, regardless of race, class, or social status. Works written under a pen name are not of lower quality than signed works; in fact, those that survive are usually of high quality. 

Pen names should be allowed even in non-fiction works. The value of a pen name is not only in the anonymity of its author, but also in the manner in which the pen name allows other folks, writers and non-writers, to step into the shoes of an author. And therefore it is important in the manner of social engineering to allow for common folks who don't write to understand somewhat what it's like to investigate the facts of their existence, and not only what it's like to produce flights of fancy. In fact, I would even argue that in this vein, it is more important for pen names to be allowed in non-fiction work than in fiction work. 

Voltaire was one of the greatest Enlightenment writers, but Voltaire was not his given name. He assumed the name Voltaire when he began writing serious works. Voltaire's works remain some of the most influential and complete expressions of Enlightenment thought that exist today. They produced part of that seismic shift that replaced religious dogma and superstition with education and science in the minds of poor and common folks, making overall human life more humane and decent than it had been in the Middle Ages, which were full of war and strife for the common person. But not only that, but the name "Voltaire" was, and still is a prime example of creating an image in the public imagination of what an author could be, and spurring onwards the interest in, and development of, literacy. The ever-more literate French middle class responded not only to the inherent skill of his works but also the character that he created and embodies to represent his works; the polymath, the libertine, the Voltaire. This image he created in the public imagination, of the power of the author, the language, and literacy itself, assures the livelihood of many authors to this day. And it was not in spite of his pen name, but in part because of his pen name, that he changed the character of writing forever. 

Even though most pen names so-called "fail" to reach the luster of Voltaire, this in itself proves the importance of Voltaire, and the importance of allowing other writers to also create such an outsize impact on the development of the cultural identity of the writer. In short, we let Voltaire try to be Voltaire, and he was a democrat, so it is only democratic that we let anyone else be Voltaire, so long as he don't use that name. For the good of the republic, we might say. But also, the process of developing the intrinsic character that represents to the public imagination the notion of "The Writer" is best served by allowing the use of pen names. The more particulars are removed from that understanding, the easier time of it people have of understanding authorship. Therefore, pen names should be allowed in all cases of authorship, though they may succeed or fail, because a successful instance advances the public understanding of literacy by a huge amount. Voltaire, after all, had predecessors. 

No author will be looked at by future historians, as being outside of time. Every person and perspective is bound by the time they live in and observe from. The works of authors written under pseudonyms will not be invisible when future generations withdraw from the compendium of human efforts a few bits of the past to illuminate the present. Their contribution shall be evaluated on its merits, but their additional sacrifice is that these authors have withdrawn their egos from the mix, and presented instead a character, successful or not, of the author as Everyman for their era. A reasonable perspective would regard this as hopeful, and inspiring.