10 Famous Females Who Used Male Pen names

Many famous authors throughout history have written under pseudonyms that became vastly more well known than the authors themselves — Charles Lutwidge Dodgson wrote under the pen name Lewis Carroll, Jozef Korzeniowski wrote under the pen name Joseph Conrad, Eric Arthur Blair wrote under the pen name George Orwell, Alisa Zinov’yevan Rosenbaum wrote under the pen name Ayn Rand, and Samuel Clemens wrote under the name Mark Twain. While some authors choose to write under a pen name as a form of artistic expression, many authors do so against their will. Authors will also use pseudonyms to conceal their true heritage or to conceal their true gender. In a world wrought with a history of sexism and gender inequality, female writers have hidden their true gender behind the veil of masculine pen names for centuries. Acknowledging that the most famous of these women found success even after abandoning their male pseudonyms shows just how outdated the sexist notion truly is. The following 10 female authors changed the world of literature forever and were able to do so even after revealing their true identities.