Authors' Pseudonyms Trivia Quiz

Answer:

As you may have noticed, all these authors are associated with the UK. Jack Higgins is the pen name of Henry Patterson who was born in 1929 in Newcastle upon Tyne. He is best remembered for his thrillers and spy stories with 'The Eagle Has Landed', from 1975, being particularly popular, helped by the film version made of it a year after publication.

Another thriller writer, James Grant is better known as Lee Child, the creator of Jack Reacher who is a major character in many of the author's novels. Child has also written short stories and a non-fiction book. John Le Carré is a well known author of spy novels, with his real name being David Cornwell. He definitely knew his subject, having worked for both MI5 and MI6 in the UK before turning full time to writing. He created the character George Smiley who featured in several novels, including 'Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy' in 1974.

Nicholas Blake is far better known as Cecil Day-Lewis, Irish born but British raised, who became Poet Laureate in 1968. Poetry did not pay well, so Day-Lewis turned to writing detective novels in 1935, using a pseudonym. Many of his novels feature a detective named Nigel Strangeways. Barbara Vine is a name used by Ruth Rendell for some of her works. Barbara is her middle name and she stated that she answered equally to both Ruth and Barbara as different people, including family, called her by both. The Vine name was less of a pen name than others as many of the books show both names on the cover, but Rendell wanted to try a different approach to writing and the name helped her to do so. The Vine stories are said to be rather darker than those written under her real name.

We head back to the Victorian era for our next two authors. George Eliot is the pen name adopted by the female author Mary Ann Evans. She chose a male name as her novels were not the type of romantic fiction expected of women of those times. Her first book was Adam Bede in1859 while her best known is probably 'Middlemarch', published in instalments between 1871 and 1872. Lewis Carroll could well be the best known author in the quiz for his novels about the girl called Alice and her extraordinary adventures. The first novel, from 1865,, was called 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland' with a sequel, six years later, with the title 'Through the Looking-Glass'. Carroll's real name was Charles Lutwidge Dodgson and he was a lecturer in mathematics at the University of Oxford.

Eric Blair was the real name of George Orwell, born in 1903. He was born in India but brought to England, with his older sisters, by his mother and brought up in Oxfordshire. He worked primarily as a journalist, but is better remembered for his novels such as 'Animal Farm' (1945) and 'Nineteen Eighty-Four' (1949). Blair chose a pen name to keep his literary work separate, picking the name Orwell from the river of that name. Although Agatha Christie is best known for her numerous murder mysteries, she also turned her hand to something lighter, romantic fiction, for which she used the name Mary Westmacott. She wrote a total of six books using this name, a combination of her second name and that of her relatives, in which she explored psychology and how it affects people's choices in love.

Much more recent is Sophie Kinsella, the name used by Madeleine Wickham. Sophie published her first books under her real name, before using her second name of Sophie and her mother's original surname. The novels written by Kinsella include the 'Shopaholic' series and several stand alone novels. The first 'Shopaholic' novel was published in 2000 and Sophie is still writing at the time of this quiz, in 2025.

The authors who published under their real names are Dick Francis, a former National Hunt jockey who turned to writing thrillers when he retired, setting them in the horse racing world he knew. Sir Walter Scott wrote several novels including 'Waverley' (1814) and 'Quentin Durward' (1823). Frederick Forsyth wrote thrillers with 'The Day of the Jackal', from 1971, among the best known. Daphne du Maurier, which sounds like a good pen name, was actually the author's real name. She wrote novels between 1931 and 1972, providing source material for film makers like Alfred Hitchcock. Her books include 'Rebecca' (1938) and 'My Cousin Rachel' (1951). Anthony Horowitz has written numerous novels, including the 'Alex Rider' series for children and novels about both Sherlock Holmes and James Bond. Thomas Hardy was a Victorian era author who gave us novels such as 'Far From the Madding Crowd' (1874) and 'Jude the Obscure' (1895).