For some authors, the freedom to write whatever they want is more important that putting fame to their name, or at least their real name. Many famous books that we know and love aren’t written by the name on the spine. JK Rowling, author of the Harry Potter Series, used pen names to explore new genres. Charlotte Bronte used one to get published despite literary discrimination against Victorian Women. Stephen King created his in order to publish more works. Authors use these aliases to keep their true identity hidden for a number of reasons. Before Joanne Rowling’s publishers knew that Harry Potter would be a smash hit with a wide variety of readers, they expected the books to mainly be read by young boys. The article “What’s In a Name?” by E. Bennet explains that Rowling’s publishers thought the book wouldn’t be taken seriously if readers knew it was written by a woman, so JK Rowling was born. After Rowling’s success with Harry Potter, Bennet mentions that she wanted to explore new genres without it being compared to her earlier work. JK Rowling’s pen names lead her to a successful career as an author. …show more content…
According to the article, “Introducing Jane Eyre: An Unlikely Victorian Heroine” by the National Endowment for the Humanities, many Victorian women, including the author of Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte, were forced to publish under male pen names. The National Endowment describes Jane Eyre as a book written to challenge society's image of the supposedly ‘perfect’ Victorian woman. Other books written during this time, such as Wuthering Heights and Middlemarch, were written by women under male names for the same purpose. These women chose to use a pen name because it allowed them to write freely without discrimination or consideration of their