Also Known As

Can you identify these writers and their pen names?

1. This author is generally regarded as the first native American to succeed as a professional writer. His popular short stories (under his real name) include "Rip Van Winkle" and "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" (1819-20). However, he called himself Diedrich Knickerbocker when he wrote his "Knickerbocker History" (1809).

2. This English novelist and playwright was most famous for her detective stories. The honored "dame" also wrote romantic novels under the name of Mary Westmacott.

3. Writer-mathematician Charles Lutwidge Dodgson was fascinated with words, logic, and a wonderland of characters. His mathematical treatises were published under his real name. For his lighter works, he used a pseudonym derived from the Latin of his given name - Carolus Ludovicus.

4. Mildred Benson and Harriet Adams worked for a syndicate that published book series for juveniles. These two authors shared a pen name for an enormously popular series about a girl detective. (Mildred wrote the first book, "The Secret of the Old Clock," in 1930.)

5. After some ill fortune, William Sydney Porter served almost four years in prison where he wrote in earnest. He became tremendously popular for his short stories under a pseudonym that some critics say he derived from the name of a prison guard. His tales were known for their brisk pace and surprise endings.

6. Atlanta writer Peggy Marsh had a manuscript that filled a suitcase and a heroine named Pansy. After a few revisions, the Civil War novel was published and became one of the most successful bestsellers ever written. The only book this novelist ever published won the 1937 Pulitzer Prize.

7. These detective stories in the 1950s were written by "A.A. Fair," but copyrighted under the author's real name (initials E.S.G.). It wasn't until the author wrote his enormously popular mystery series about a problem-solving trial lawyer that he used his real name. (At one time he was the only contemporary novelist whose life was insured by his publishers.)

ANSWERS

(1) Washington Irving published "The Knickerbocker History of New York" under the name Diedrich Knickerbocker; (2) Dame Agatha Christie wrote romance novels as Mary Westmacott;

(3) mathematician Charles Lutwidge Dodgson also published as Lewis Carroll; (4) Mildred Benson and Harriet Adams jointly wrote Nancy Drew books as Carolyn Keene; (5) William Sydney Porter was the pseudonym of O. Henry; (6) Peggy Marsh published "Gone With the Wind" under the name Margaret Mitchell; (7) A.A. Fair was Earle Stanley Gardner.