Art
These world-famous female writers pretended they were men to ensure their work was read and published
In 1929, in her essay A Room of One's Own, novelist Virginia Woolf pondered why there weren’t any literary works, poems, or sonnets written by women during Shakespeare's time that had made it into the history books. Her conclusion makes you think:
"I would venture to guess that Anon, who wrote so many poems without signing them, was often a woman."
While it is now impossible to know if any of these "anonymous authors" were women, what we do know is that many female authors and writers couldn’t sign their real names due to the constraints of the times, the subjects they were writing about, or the literary genres they were interested in... Instead, they used male pen names to avoid being judged, censored, or scorned. Their talent and creativity are responsible for major contributions to the history of world literature. Have you read any of their classic texts?
1. The Brontë sisters (the Bell brothers)
Sisters Charlotte Brontë (author of Jane Eyre), Emily Brontë (author of Wuthering Heights), and Anne Brontë (author of The Tenant of Wildfell Hall) launched their literary career signing the names Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell.
Their decision to do so was down to the fact that the subjects they were writing about were considered shocking, even immoral, at the time: controversial romances, alcoholism, violence... Although many of their contemporary writers still criticized their work for its "depraved" content, the reaction would have been far more extreme had it been known that these texts were written by three women from respectable families.
Today, these sisters’ novels are considered groundbreaking works of art that have made their mark on the history of literature.
