Faces of Anonymity: Anonymous and Pseudonymous Publication, 1600-2000 [Paperback]

This pathbreaking collection of original essays surveys an important but neglected topic: anonymous publication in England for the Elizabethan age to the present. An impressive group of scholars analyzes a wide range of literary phenomena including: Shakespeare in 17th century commonplace books; the phrase 'By a Lady'; the implied author of an eighteenth century queer fiction; Bentley and the battle of books; essays by Equiano (?); the novel, 1750 - 1830; Frankenstein's unnamed monster; the co-authored pseudonym Michael Field; nineteenth century ghostwriting; and a postmodern hoax on national identity. The editor's introduction places the essays within the context of the historical trajectory of anonymous authorship. Essential reading for anyone interested in authorship and the history of the book.Rehearsing the Absent Name: Reading Shakespeare's Sonnets through Anonymity; M.North Death of an Author: Constructions of Pseudonymity in the Battle of the Books; K.Haugen By a Lady: The Mask of the Feminine in Restoration, Early Eighteenth Century Print Culture; M.Ezell The Author's Queer Clothes: Authorship, Sex(uality) and 'The Travels and Adventures of Mademoiselle de Richelieu'; S.Lanser More Letters by Gustavus Vasa or Olaudah Equiano?; V.Carretta The Anonymous Novel in Britain and Ireland, 1750 - 1830; J.Raven Nothing's Namelessness: Mary Shelley's 'Frankenstein'; S.Eilenberg The Co-authored Pseudonym: Two Women Named Michael Field; H.A.Laird From Ghostwriter to Typewriter: Delegating Authority at Fin de Siecle; L.Price A Poet May Not Exist: Mock-Hoaxes and the Construction of National Identity; B.McHaleROBERT J. GRIFFIN is Associate Professor of English at Tel Aviv University and the Associate Editor of Poetics Today. He is the author of Wordsworth's Pope: A Study in Literary Historiography (Cambridge, 1995) and is completing a book-length manuscript on anonymity and authorship.