Writers publish under other names for a variety of reasons. Some use literary aliases in order to fit in while others employ them to stand out from the crowd.

This book traces the history of pen names from the nineteenth century to the present day through forty novelists, poets and playwrights. These include famous pseudonymous writers such as George Eliot (Mary Anne Evans), Currer Bell (Charlotte Brontë), Lewis Carroll (Charles Lutwidge Dodgson) and George Orwell (Eric Blair), crime writers such as Josephine Tey and Nicci French, and those lesser-known writers whose real identities have been obscured behind their literary aliases.

The book also explores the wide range of motivations for taking on new names, including gender, the use of noms de plume for different genres, or even when writing as a team. Collectively, the stories in this book give us unusual insights into authors, publishers and readers over the last 200 years.