‘George Eliot’ joins 24 female authors making debuts under their real names

[bloak]

To me it seems disrespectful to publish someone's book under a different name from the one they chose to publish it under.

Also, the name "George Eliot" having been chosen by the writer herself rather than by her parents doesn't make that name any less "real".

Obviously it's a bit sad that contemporary circumstances encouraged her to choose a masculine pen name, but it seems very likely from her biography that she would in any case have used some kind of a pen name for her novels in order to separate the novels from her other work. So perhaps someone should republish her novels under the name Georgette Eliot. That would make about as much sense as what they've done here.

It's also a bit sad that most English names are gendered. But we can't easily fix that with a pull request, can we?

[2038AD]

> To me it seems disrespectful to publish someone's book under a different name from the one they chose to publish it under.

It's an interesting situation because it's obviously meant to honour the authors but in doing so it's speaking for them. It relies on the idea that these authors were women who took pseudonyms because of the society they were in rather than fully by choice.

The description of George Sand stood out to me

> Amantine Aurore Dupin, the 19th-century author better known as George Sand, who famously scandalised society by wearing male clothing and smoking cigars in public.

Wouldn't using a masculine name and wearing masculine clothing be grounds to consider her in fact a him, a transgender man? Today, Marsha P. Johnson is considered to be a trans woman rather than a gay man yet she never used the term. Admittedly, Johnson also used feminine pronouns but so have many other gay men.

It reminds me of Foone's Don’t Deadname the Dead https://foone.wordpress.com/2019/04/27/dont-deadname-the-dea...

[SideburnsOfDoom]

> To me it seems disrespectful to publish someone's book under a different name from the one they chose to publish it under.

Article spends a lot of time discussing why they chose to publish under a male name. And why "chose" might not be a good word for it.

[goto11]

Legally, the right to publish pseudonymously is part of the "moral rights" of the author. This does not necessarily expire the same as copyright expire. I believe in some countries moral rights never expire.

Moral rights means for example you can freely publish Shakespeare (because copyright is expired) but you cannot remove his name as author - he still have the right of attribution.

[hrktb]

> It's also a bit sad that most English names are gendered. But we can't easily fix that with a pull request, can we?

It happens on the receiving end mostly. The day a prominent female “George” rises high enough, more girls will be named George and the name will switch to a feminine perception most of the time

It’s a funny phenomenon actually, there was studies on how the perceived gender mostly went from male/neutral to female, and rarely the other way round.

[bengillies]

> It's also a bit sad that most English names are gendered.

fwiw the name George in English can be applied to women as well as men (though only rarely I guess). See for example Famous Five books

[Hamuko]

Yeah, it feels kinda disrespectful since the author has no input on the thing.

I guess if you really want to note how it's by a female author, you could have it as "Ms. George Eliot", although that seems rather tacky.

>It's also a bit sad that most English names are gendered.

Non-gendered names are actually pretty much illegal here, so the English way isn't really that crazy.

[celticninja]

Most English names are, but surely so are most other names too. I am sure there are exceptions, but let's say in Muslim naming traditions there are definitely male and female names, also in Chinese there are male and female names (sort of, as girls names tend to use certain characters and boys names use certain characters. So between English names, Chinese names and Muslim names I am guessing a pretty good coverage of world population, enough to say that it is more common that names are gendered, than for them to not be. I would love to hear a counterpoint or even example of alternatives.

Oh almost forgot Iceland,not a huge population but changes the surname based on gender too, e.g Johnsson or Johnsdottir

[goto11]

Agree! Many authors used and use pseudonyms of their own gender, so it is not like the only reason to use a pseudonym is to avoid gender prejudice. The choice of pseudonym is part of the work itself.

Some authors are very deliberate about it, e.g. Søren Kierkegaard wrote under a host of different pseudonyms, all deliberate chosen, and also published some books in his own name.

[kitd]

I think the problem is that many people didn't, or even still don't, know that George Eliot was a woman. Which was kind of why she had to choose it in the first place (cf the Bronte sisters who had to do the same thing initially).

Using her real name goes some way to restoring the respect to woman writers that wasn't there at the time. Ie there's a justice element to it too.

[renewiltord]

She's been dead for 150 years. No one who could conceivably be harmed is alive now.

Diogenes comes to mind.

[JustSomeNobody]

I agree it is disrespectful. A person's pen name is a part of the book itself; it adds to that book's character. You shouldn't change that just because 100 years later you want to make some point.

[Razengan]

Parent-given names should be considered temporary until a person chooses their own at 20 or 25.

[bookofjoe]

>Alice Bradley Sheldon (August 24, 1915 – May 19, 1987) was an American science fiction author better known as James Tiptree Jr., a pen name she used from 1967 to her death. It was not publicly known until 1977 that James Tiptree Jr. was a woman.

Awards and Honors:

The Science Fiction Hall of Fame inducted Tiptree in 2012. She also won several annual awards for particular works of fiction (typically the preceding calendar year's best):

• Hugo Awards: 1974 novella, "The Girl Who Was Plugged In"; 1977 novella, "Houston, Houston, Do You Read?"

• Nebula Awards: 1973 short story, "Love Is the Plan the Plan Is Death"; 1976 novella, "Houston, Houston, Do You Read?"; 1977 novelette, "The Screwfly Solution" (published as by Raccoona Sheldon)

• World Fantasy Award: 1987 collection, Tales of the Quintana Roo

• Locus Award: 1984 short story, "Beyond the Dead Reef"; 1986 novella, "The Only Neat Thing to Do"

• Science Fiction Chronicle Award: 1986 novella, "The Only Neat Thing to Do"

•Jupiter Award: 1977 novella, "Houston, Houston, Do You Read?"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Tiptree_Jr.

[tokai]

This seems like a commercial for a vanity reprinting of public domain works. Karen Blixen would have been so obvious to include, but her works are still covered by copyright, so that would have taken some actual effort to get published. They have chosen some weird boring titles. Middlemarch is the only real interesting book in the collection.

[cafard]

To quote Jacques Barzun: "George Eliot is the great author. Mary Anne Evans is the pedant's girlfriend."

Now will we address such male authors as Stendhal, Mark Twain, Saki, Flann O'Brien/Myles na gCopaleen, Anthony Burgess, and Ross Macdonald, and think we have done great things?

[atlgator]

I still prefer Mark Twain over Samuel Clemens.

[bryanrasmussen]

I suppose, thinking about it, that death imparts all the advantages a nom de plume secures without the disagreeableness of having to hide who you are. So in that sense it is a good thing.

[wmeredith]

If the pen name’s purpose was to keep bigotry against women from coloring how your work is received, it certainly does not.

[captn3m0]

Torrent for the collection:

magnet:?xt=urn:btih:7cc1738ed1a51318d07d8b5a72e463306fe5d2af&dn=reclaim-her-name&tr=udp%3A%2F%2Ftracker.opentrackr.org%3A1337%2Fannounce

[SideburnsOfDoom]

I would personally hope for some James Tiptree Jr.

But that might not be a common choice.

[fmdud]

filing this one under "who cares"