{"id":11197,"date":"2021-04-26T10:00:12","date_gmt":"2021-04-26T14:00:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/?p=11197"},"modified":"2025-03-26T17:17:58","modified_gmt":"2025-03-26T21:17:58","slug":"a-look-at-pseudonyms-in-pulp-magazines","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/2021\/04\/26\/a-look-at-pseudonyms-in-pulp-magazines\/","title":{"rendered":"A look at pseudonyms in pulp magazines"},"content":{"rendered":"

While authors for a long time have hidden themselves behind pseudonyms or pen names, the use of them is a big part of the pulp magazines.<\/p>\n

\"Walter
Walter B. Gibson<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The reasons that some used pseudonyms are many. And instead of just one, some authors often had half a dozen or more pseudonyms. This has actually made it difficult for researchers to figure out who wrote what.<\/p>\n

Many authors didn’t bother to keep their own records, and records for many publishers weren’t saved. This leaves researchers to try to figure things out via writing styles and the like. And sometimes mistakes are made.<\/p>\n

So let’s take a look at why pseudonyms were used, and who used them.<\/p>\n

House Name<\/h4>\n

One unusal type of pseudonym is the “house name,” which is not owned by the author but by the publisher. And in many cases could be used to cover multiple authors. These harkened back to the many dime novel serial characters who were either credited to the character themselves or to “NoName” or the like. As the dime novel characters were often owned by the publisher, this made sense. This practice was also used by various juvenile book syndicates who, again, owned the characters and not the authors.<\/p>\n

In the pulps, I’m not sure when they started to be used, but the first I knew of its use is with “Maxwell Grant<\/strong>” as the author of The Shadow<\/strong>, rather than credit Walter B. Gibson<\/strong>. Interestingly, Gibson created that name, using the names of two magic dealers. When you keep in mind that The Shadow, like the previous dime novel characters, was owned by the publisher, this is why. This was different from the many previous serialized characters that were owned by the authors, as well as you now had a magazine focused on and named for the character.<\/p>\n

Hence the main reason for the use of house names was that should there need to be a new author to write the character, this can be hidden under the house name, and so most, but certainly not all, of the character pulps to follow did this. Making it more tricky is when these house names would be used for other characters, or would be used by the publisher for more wider use.<\/p>\n

\"Henry
Henry Kuttner<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

For instance, when Walter Gibson wrote the\u00a0Norgil the Magician<\/strong> stories for Crime Busters<\/em>, these were also credited to Maxwell Grant.<\/p>\n

Street & Smith used the “Kenneth Robeson<\/strong>” house name for the Doc Savage<\/strong> novels. Lester Dent<\/strong> was the main Kenneth Robeson for Doc Savage, but others wrote Doc novels.<\/p>\n

They also credited Robeson as the author of The Avenger<\/strong> (probably to help bring over Doc Savage fans), and as the author in the Ed Stone<\/strong> series in the Crime Buster<\/em> pulp. But with The Avenger, Paul Ernst<\/strong> was really the author; however in the Ed Stone series, it was Lester Dent.<\/p>\n

Thrilling used “Charles Stoddard<\/strong>” to hide Henry Kuttner<\/strong> for Thunder Jim Wade<\/strong>, but used the name for other works by other authors. Then there is the “C.K.M Scanlon<\/strong>” pseudonym used even more widely at Thrilling. The story I’ve heard is that it stood for the “Cylvia Kleinman\/Margulies Scandal,” referring to an affair by editor Leo Margulies<\/strong> with editor Cylvia Kleinman<\/strong>, whom he later married. Margulies was the head editor at Thrilling. So he was rubbing people’s noses in it?<\/p>\n

\"B.M.
B.M. Bower<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I’m a woman<\/h4>\n

There were several female authors who wrote under pseudonyms. Sometimes the concern was that men, especially in certain genres like adventure or westerns, wouldn’t want to read a story by a woman. This sucked, but to a degree continues to this day, as witnessed by the use of “J.K. Rowling<\/strong>,” as it was thought a female author of a juvenile series starring a boy might be hurt by that. Examples of this in the pulps include western author B.M. Bower<\/strong> really being Bertha Muzzy Sinclair<\/strong> (Bower was her first husband’s name) and weird-fiction author Francis Stevens<\/strong> really being Gertrude Barrows Bennett<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

See my recent article on “Women in the Pulps” for more examples of this.<\/p>\n

Don’t let my boss know<\/h4>\n

Another reason for pseudonyms is to hide that the author is writing on the side. Sometimes they had another career and didn’t want it known they were writing fiction. There have been scientists who wrote fiction on the side such as John Taine<\/strong> (who was really mathematician Eric Temple Bell<\/strong>).<\/p>\n

Often editors who wanted to write used them \u2014 especially if their works would appear in the magazines they edited. In a few cases, this fact was discovered, but the author still used it. George F. Worts<\/strong> when he first started to write, did so as “Loring Brent<\/strong>,” under which he created Peter the Brazen<\/strong>, as well as other works. But after about two years of writing, he started using his real name, but still used Loring Brent for Peter the Brazen and other works. Catherine Moore<\/strong> wrote as “C.L. Moore<\/strong>” for that reason, not to hide her gender.<\/p>\n

\"John
John Taine<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A particular bizarre example of this is the case of who Allison V. Harding<\/strong> was, who wrote for Weird Tales<\/em> in the ’40s. It was originally thought she was really attorney Jean Milligan<\/strong>, writing on the side. But it may be it was really her husband, Lamont Buchanan<\/strong>, who used it because he was an editor at Weird Tales<\/em>!<\/p>\n

I’m embarrassed (or don’t want to confuse my readers)<\/h4>\n

As a kind of variant of not letting your boss know, some authors used pseudonyms to hide that they were either writing for the pulps, or that they were writing for certain types of pulps, such as the spicy pulps.<\/p>\n

Western author Max Brand<\/strong> was really Frederick Faust<\/strong>, who wanted to avoid using his real name while writing for the pulps. But he mainly used this one for his western stories, using other pseudonyms for other types of works. He had about a dozen.<\/p>\n

When Hugh B. Cave<\/strong> was asked to write for the spicy pulps, he used the name Justin Case<\/strong> for those. And there are other examples of this.<\/p>\n

\"H.
H. Bedford-Jones<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I write too much<\/h4>\n

I remember when it was revealed that Stephen King<\/strong> had published four works under the name “Richard Bachman<\/strong>” and that the reason was that he was writing “too quickly.” I think many were surprised that an author was “too quick” in writing, as most popular authors at that time usually put out at most one work a year.<\/p>\n

Having learned more about the pulps, I find that hilarious as many pulp authors were churning out works very quickly, and I don’t think King has equaled many of them. Walter Gibson was at some point was writing about 20 Shadow novels a year, plus stories for the Shadow<\/em> comic books and comic strip, and who knows how many other works. H. Bedford-Jones<\/strong> was also putting them out, writing over 1,000 works, sometimes working on four different typewriters at once.<\/p>\n

But this was why many authors used several pseudonyms. If an author was going to have more than one story in the same issue, the other works had to appear under a pseudonym. One story I’ve heard for years is of a pulp magazine issue where everything<\/em> was written by the same person, but I have no idea if it’s true. No one has ever said what issue or what author. But I would love to know if it is so.<\/p>\n

Oops<\/strong><\/p>\n

I noted above that sometimes things go wrong with trying to identify the author of a pseudonymous work.\u00a0 And sometimes mistakes are made.\u00a0 An example of things going wrong in identifying an author is the case of the story “As It Was Written” that was submitted to The Thrill Book<\/em> in 1919, but did not see print. It was found in the late 1970s and misidentified as the work of Clark Ashton Smith<\/strong>, and was published under his name in a hardback from Donald M. Grant<\/strong> in 1982. But it was by De Lysle Fer\u00e9e Cass<\/strong>. I recall fanzine articles about this from the time when this was discovered after publication. Oops!\u00a0 I guess the name was so unusual, maybe it was thought it had to be an alias.<\/p>\n

So hopefully this gives folks a better appreciation of the pseudonym in pulp fiction.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

While authors for a long time have hidden themselves behind pseudonyms or pen names, the use of them is a big part of the pulp magazines. The reasons that some used pseudonyms are many. And instead of just one, some authors often had half a dozen or more pseudonyms. This has actually made it difficult […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":11571,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_has_post_settings":[],"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"The Pulp Super-Fan takes a look at pseudonyms in pulp magazines. #pulpmags","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_wp_rev_ctl_limit":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[405,348,347,410,310,110,352,407,404,153,400,411,408,403,409,399,401,95,406,319,320,302,226,109,412,304],"hashtags":[],"class_list":["post-11197","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pulps","tag-allison-v-harding","tag-b-m-bower","tag-c-l-moore","tag-clark-ashton-smith","tag-crime-busters","tag-doc-savage","tag-francis-stevens","tag-frederick-faust","tag-george-f-worts","tag-h-bedford-jones","tag-henry-kuttner","tag-house-name","tag-hugh-b-cave","tag-john-taine","tag-justin-case","tag-kenneth-robeson","tag-leo-margulies","tag-lester-dent","tag-max-brand","tag-maxwell-grant","tag-norgil-the-magician","tag-paul-ernst","tag-the-avenger","tag-the-shadow","tag-walter-b-gibson","tag-weird-tales"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/files\/2021\/03\/walter-gibson-and-the-shadow-featured.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3eLo8-2UB","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11197","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11197"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11197\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19913,"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11197\/revisions\/19913"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11571"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11197"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11197"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11197"},{"taxonomy":"hashtags","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtags?post=11197"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}