Every publication is required, by law I believe, to carry the printer's name. No such rigorous obligation attaches to statements of authorship. It is a licence that fiction, in particular, has richly exploited. Ever since its rise the novel has flirted with authorial anonymity and pseudonymity. Great unknowns, pen names and spoof attributions figure centrally in the genre's history, from Scott, to George Eliot, to Kilgore Trout.

LRB 17 July 1980 | PDF Download